2nd COPY, 
1893. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



Chap,__ Copyright No 

Shelf__Li.3_.^3 



I 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE DIVINE FORCE IN THE 
LIFE OF THE WORLD 




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The Divine Force in 
the Life of the World 

[Lowell Institute Lectures] 



By 

Alexander McKenzie 

Author of 

A Door Opened," "Christ Himself," " Some Things 
Abroad," '* Cambridge Sermons " 



VTCRESCIT 



I 



Lamson, WolfFe and Company 

Boston, New York, London 

MDCCCXCVIII 

L . 






21420 



Copyright, 1S9S, 
By Lamson, Wdlffe and Company 

All rights reserved 

TSVD COPIES RECEIVED. 




S. J. PARKHILL & CO., BOSTON, U.S. 
PRINTERS 






TO MY WIFE 

WHOSE COUNSEL AND ENCOURAGEMENT 
ARE MY CONTINUAL HELP 



PREFACE 

The contents of this book were recently given 
as a course of lectures before the Lowell Insti- 
tute. They are now published by the request 
and advice of many persons whose judgment is 
with authority. No change has been made in the 
substance of the lectures, and very little in their 
form. Some passages which were omitted in the 
reading are now printed in their place, and here 
and there a sentence has been added. 

The purpose of the book will be evident to any 
one who reads it. I claim no novelty for this ; but 
I cannot too strongly assert my conviction of the 
profound importance of the one truth which has 
controlled me from the beginning of the pages, 
which I offer for the cheer and comfort of the 
serious days in which we are living. 

Alexander McKenzie. 

The First Church in Cambridge, 
October, 1898. 



CONTENTS 



PAGB 

I. The Creation and Man 1 

II. The Course of Man in the Oldest Literature . 51 

III. The Son of Man in early Literature . .115 

IV. The Purpose and Method of Christ . . . 165 
V. The Cause of Christ in the Hands of Men . 219 

VI. The Christian Forces 277 

Index 327 



I 

THE CREATION AND MAN 



THE CREATION AND MAN 



It was by a somewhat singular process of 
self-restraint that one whose life had been that 
of a parish minister undertook to treat the 
themes of religion without preaching; to sep- 
arate them from feeling and appeal, from per- 
sonal experience and desire, and to regard them 
simply as vital and interesting truths. Yet this 
is possible. It is certainly necessary, lest the 
truths of religion should become too closely 
identified with our own thought and habit of 
thinking ; with advantages which we propose to 
derive from them; with cherished ideas and 
vested interests; with institutions and constitu- 
tions to which, in our suggestive phrase, we 
" belong." 

While in its most serious meaning religion is 
related to experience, if it is trustworthy we should 
be able to stand on the outside of it, and to examine 
it, and the evidences which attend it, in the light 
of reason and conscience, of spiritual thought, of 
history, of influence, and with the highest intel- 



4 THE CBEATION AND MAN 

lectual and ethical honesty. If it appeals to 
faith, as it must do because of its relation to 
the unseen, it is a faith which rests on intelli- 
gence, and can justify itself with truth. 

It is proposed to consider certain elements of 
religion; and not the forms which have been 
given to them. A truth, if it remains among 
men, finds a body formed around it, with members 
and organs, with structure and weight. The 
form has its honor and its use. But it may come 
to pass that this is more conspicuous than the 
truth which is in it, which must shine through it, 
with its light, perhaps, colored and diverted on 
the way ; as a ray from the sun is shattered by 
the prism which is thrust in its path. Yet it 
should not be very hard to find the truth and to 
regard it by itself. The universal interest in that 
which may be termed religion is promising. The 
gathering of materials belonging to it will be fol- 
lowed by the construction of the Temple. It is 
the usual order, though not invariable in this kind 
of building. If I may cite an ancient writer, 
whose name I do not know, there are signs which 
suggest "the removing of those things that are 
shaken, as of things that have been made, that 
those things which are not shaken may remain." 

Others have spoken and written upon the vari- 
ous departments of religious thought and life, 



THE CREATION AND MAN 5 

and their words are with us, rich in learning, and 
the more instructive because their breadth per- 
mitted depth. It were as dull as it would be 
useless for me to attempt to do again what has 
been done well. It were better that I should 
recognize what has been said, and make use of it 
so far as it will assist my design. As I look 
toward the westering sun, whose slant beams fall 
on many years which have been spent among 
these things that we have in mind, I hold it for 
myself, and for those who trust me, to be well de- 
termined that there is a permanent reality called 
religion ; with spirit and form, with word and life ; 
and that without extraordinary effort thoughtful 
men and women can have it, and rejoice in it. 
This must certainly be so, if there is the reality. 
For in its nature religion must be universal, and 
hence in its elements readily comprehended. It 
is not, in its principles, subject to our control. 
It expresses the true relation of man to God, and 
that we have to learn and accept and employ. 
It is given to us as the light is, and cannot itself 
be changed in our hands. 

When we have gone beyond the first principles 
there is room for diversity of belief and statement, 
and no one can complain that the room has not 
been occupied. There is a variety of opinions, 
reaching as far as thought can go ; affected by 



6 TBE CREATION AND MAN 

lands and times and conditions, by mental traits 
and desires, and appalling in character and 
amount. Can we get away far enough to be free 
from conditions, and find the comfort which is for 
those who live "in the familiar thought of the 
eternal years " ? 

I shall refer from time to time to the earliest 
chapters of the Bible. Let me say once for all 
that I do this, not because they are in the Bible, 
but because they are our oldest literature, which 
entitles them to respect ; and they give a concise 
and connected account of the times of which we 
have no better record. They furnish an excellent 
statement of early events. They assert a further 
claim upon our regard, but that I shall not 
press. 

There is a point at which, with full consent, 
our thought begins. I like the superb organ 
tones of those primal words of the primal book, 
" In the beginning, God." There reason and 
imagination rest. The mind may wish to venture 
on, but this is the last solid ground. Shall we 
meet there, and, unable to go farther north, come 
down into the world of to-day ? 

I see the difficulty of this method. It would 
seem easier to start from our streets and ascend 
until we come to God in his solitude. But is it 
not best to begin with the simple, and is not God 



/ 



THE CREATION AND MAN f 

clearer than the world; concealed, confused, con- 
tradictory to us who are in the midst of it, and 
whirling around with it ? It is better to begin in 
the mystery than to end in it. The world is 
plainer when we stand with God and look upon 
it than is God when we stand in the world and 
lift our eyes to Him. We cannot know Him per- 
fectly ; but the knowledge to which we can attain 
illumines the earth. Mysteries are merely truths 
which are not yet disclosed, and they are opened 
before us in the light of his presence. 

Religion in any intelligent use of the term must 
confess a supreme mind and will, which can be 
known and ought to be obeyed. It is more than 
knowledge and obedience, for its home is in the 
deepest nature of man, where in its allegiance to 
the true and its devotion to the right it governs 
the life. We seem to be coming toward a service- 
able agreement concerning these things. A prom- 
inent teacher of philosophy, not identified with 
the common religious thought, closed an address 
not long ago with the remark, " I am certainly 
disposed to insist that what the faith of our 
fathers has genuinely meant by God is iden- 
tical with the inevitable outcome of a reflective 
philosophy." 

Religion is in the highest sense personal, for it is 
the worship, the loyalty, of the spirit who is man. 



8 THE CEEATION AND MAN 

responding to the divinity of the spirit who is God. 
If we ask what upon our side is the source of 
religion and the religious idea, the answer is 
prepared. They have their source within the 
life of man, and are inseparable from it. For the 
life must be lower than it has anywhere been 
found to be devoid of the principle of religion. 
But what is the source of the life of man which 
brings religion within it? The answer again is 
obvious. At the first, before all things, or ever 
creation had issued into the void of space, was 
the Eternal, the Almighty. " In the beginning, 
God." I do not know when they were first 
written, or spoken, or thought, those four words. 
They come from a realm into which no discoverer 
has penetrated. They keep their place in our 
thought because they are true. They are at the 
opening of the oldest book in use. It is accounted 
a book of religion, but that should not lessen its 
authority. There are the words, with unrecorded 
centuries upon them. It is of more than ordinary 
interest, to think of a man whose name and land 
we do not know, of whom we have no sign but in 
these syllables and the sentences which follow 
them, finding his way into his undetermined 
past, and telling to his children, and through 
them to the world, this simple, massive truth, and 
relating the deeds which in grandeur stand 



THE CREATION AND MAN 9 

within it. The first chapter of the Book needs 
no name to give it majesty. Whence it came no 
one can telh 

Here I might rest, so far as this is concerned. 
If I add a fifth word, the universe starts into 
being : ..." In the beginning God created." 
Here an entirely new word appears, and a new 
fact. Language and history are enriched in one 
event. Science receives a stupendous endow- 
ment. Alone in his eternity He dwelt and all 
life was his. It is beyond our thought, but not 
so far beyond as would be the denial of it. We 
willingly allow our thought to flow out to the 
Eternal and there to rest among the mysteries 
which do not weary us. What resources for 
companionship the Creator had in his own being 
we need not now inquire. From the fellowship 
in our own nature we infer with confidence of 
reasoning the perfect fellowship within his infi- 
nite being, and of this many things have been 
written. I am concerned here only with the 
presence of the life, whose reality is the earliest 
truth. By his will, through his power. He made 
that to be which was not, and could not other- 
wise become. " The Universal Cause, itself un- 
caused," by its living will summoned creation. 

He must have delighted to create. How 
readily we use the new word, failing to think 



10 THE CBEATION AND MAN 

of the fathomless mysteries which it contains ! 
Creation! Who shall describe it? Its results 
we perceive ; but by what process have they 
come? Creation is not the combining of mate- 
rials, for there were no materials. It is not the 
erection of a building, or the construction of a 
mechanism. Creation is the outreaching of en- 
ergy, thought, will, life, into forms which they 
had not known. But when and how did this 
come to pass ? With the advance of our knowl- 
edge this constantly recurring question is not 
more easily answered. We have many things 
relating to the world, and the worlds, and their 
life, but they have kept this secret. If we no 
longer imagine the Almighty upon some day 
which is a little beyond our calendar making a 
universe and sending it on its course; if we 
cherish the later announcement that it was by 
almost interminable processes that the universe 
was produced, — the nebular dust with no discov- 
erable motion gathering itself into stars, and the 
jetsam and flotsam of chaos stretching themselves 
in unmeasured planes to make the earth, — still the 
time, and the way, refuse to declare themselves. 
But earth and sky, and air and sea, confess the 
divine hand that made them, and with their 
thousand voices utter their praise. 
I have fallen into the old way in saying the 



THE CREATION AND MAN 11 

divine hand. They were not hand-made. But 
the language has very high authority and is con- 
venient. It is hard to describe what no one has 
ever thoroughly told. 

"In the beginning, God." He was all the life. 
Religion and science are in accord. Many have 
spoken of life. The last official utterance which 
has come to my notice was made by one who is, 
I suppose, as well entitled to speak as any one in 
the world. In the distinguished medical congress 
in Moscow last year Professor Virchow, of Berlin, 
gave an address upon " The Continuity of Life." 
" Life," he said, " had no other origin than from 
Life itself, and this is one of the truths which the 
labors of the pathologist and biologist of the 
present century have established beyond the pos- 
sibility of doubt." We knew that before. But 
it is well to hear it again from time to time. He 
thought it necessary to call it to the minds of the 
hundreds of physicians who had flocked to the 
Kremlin. He closed with the hope " that the 
final mystery of life might be solved through 
similar studies. It is in their laboratory that the 
key will be forged which shall unlock the door 
which still holds us back from full knowledge of 
the processes of life." I cannot think there is the 
remote probability that this learning will ever be 
acquired. Meantime we shall continue to live. 



12 THE CREATION AND MAN ■ 

We are confirmed in our knowledge of the one 
origin of life. In this is our hope, nor does 
science " waft us home the message of despair." 
''In Him was life." He was the life. In that 
life, with it, of it, for it, He created. The pur- 
pose to create was in the begiiming, an eternal 
thought. In that sense creation was eternal, for 
his purposes do not change. It could then, in a 
large measure, have its value for Him. His idea 
was the reality. It is easiest to retain the ordi- 
nary conception and to think of the creation as an 
event in time. 

From another point of view it has been reasoned 
in this way : God is spirit, and it is the essence 
of spirit to manifest itself ; and creation " is the 
eternal self-revelation of God." He was not 
dependent upon it, yet creation was certain to 
come. At any rate, its coming was reasonable 
and desirable. To have this shut up in his inten- 
tion could not have been permanent ; for, in the 
first place, creation was to be for others also ; and, 
again, it was to be his delight to call the others 
into being, that they might enjoy the earth and 
the heavens, and receive his love which needed 
true hearts for its home, and return it in their 
love which must needs be the free and personal 
offering of a real soul. The Almighty, as it 
were, went beyond Himself. The terms are sadly 



THE CREATION AND MAN 13 

inaccurate — his thought reached away, his will 
carried his life out, and gave it larger being and 
form. What the first forms were is of little con- 
sequence in comparison with the fact that they 
were ; that the created was in the presence of the 
eternal. It is for the students of life and form to 
find out what this beginning was, and to tell us 
who are* busy with other things. " If the whole 
body were an eye, where were the hearing ? " 
Science has been tardy, but it has come to our 
help at last. We shall not let it go till it has 
blessed us, and its full blessing no one of us shall 
see. Science is prophet and psalmist, proclaim- 
ing truth, and teaching us to rejoice and be glad 
in it. I believe it has been called the handmaid 
of religion. The term is not accurate. Religion 
has no handmaid. It is the associate, the friend, 
of religion. They work for one end — the 
knowledge of God, to the intent that He may be 
worshipped. Science without religion lacks its 
true and highest purpose. Religion without 
science is likely to be sentiment, and not virtue. 
It is now evident that the first created forms 
were simple. There was a force working for 
their enlargement and continuation. What was 
needed was a starting ; a living seed, which in 
the ages that were plentiful might be made a 
tree, a grove, a forest. We find it difficult to see 



14 THE CREATION AND MAN 

the beginning. It would have been difficult then 
to see the end. Indeed, we do not see it now. 
But the result was to be accomplished, and not 
by some power made inherent in things. This 
which had been made had not been cast off in its 
infancy, to live if it could. The divine life was 
to continue to be its life. The shears did not 
come near the thread. " That cruel Atropos " 
was not yet invented. The one life was to be 
the reason and ground of its existence. The 
presence of the Creator was to be in all things. 
He could not be identified with them. They were 
not God. He could withdraw his life and care, 
and they would vanish away. They were not so 
much as the form or the raiment of the Creator. 
They were his works, and He was before them, 
in the strength and glory of eternal being. They 
could be multiplied without limit. Other things 
might be set in their places. But in and after all 
changes He would remain the same, administer- 
ing his " undisturbed affairs." He was not all in 
the things he had made, restricted by them, em- 
bodied in their bounds. If I may vary the image, 
the ocean is in every bay and harbor along the 
coast. This is the only and sufficient ground of 
their being. If the ocean should withdraw, they 
would all cease to be. The tides of the ocean 
are felt on the shore. It is a poor illustration. 



THE CREATION AND MAN 15 

The ocean is in the harbors, but is not dependent 
upon them. They are utterly dependent upon the 
ocean. It wears away the shore and makes new 
harbors for itself, but it does not imprison its 
waters. The Atlantic rolls to-night about Minot's 
Ledge, but it is three thousand miles to Fastnet 
Rock, and the ocean reaches all the way. No 
meridian makes a mark upon its waves. So is it 
with the divine life. It is the ocean flowing into 
the bays. We must recognize " an omnipresent 
energy, which is none other than the living God." 
"The one eternal and ultimate reality is the 
absolute life of God." 

We are reminded of the youth of our present 
views of the creating of the world when we find a 
man as recent as Plato describing the disorder of 
sensible things, and the Deity as making each 
thing harmonize with itself and with other things, 
and then out of them constructing the universe. 
We are not troubled by this simplicity. After all 
there is the Deity. If we have Him, " sensible 
things " come readily, and are obedient. No one 
has yet traced the intermediate steps between the 
Eternal and the world as we have seen it. But 
the main facts are clear, and it is these which 
impress us. We are driven to the use of our own 
language when we speak of God, and the language 
is not adapted to such service. Yet it does its 



16 THE CREATION AND MAN 

best; and if we have imagination, and are at 
liberty, the assistance is real. It is in this spirit 
I hazard the remark, that it was a supreme 
moment with the Almighty when He gave to his 
eternal design the form which was named crea- 
tion. It was the free, glad, ready outworking of 
his wisdom and power. We can almost think his 
delight when for the first time '' the morning stars 
sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for 
joy ; " and the content with which He " saw every- 
thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very 
good." Life is generous, munificent. It gives 
itself. He was generosity, for He was love ; and 
this became creation. The divine thought rejoiced 
when it was literally born into the world. We 
connect the Creator and creation, and properly. 
Each is disclosed in the other. God is revealed 
in his works, and the meaning of the works is 
found in Him. We know nothing completely, 
but we nurse the incompleteness of our knowledge 
when we sever it from that to which it is vitally 
united, and regard it altogether by itself. The 
heavens declare the glory of God and God declares 
the glory of the heavens. They have their real 
value in the shining through them of his light. 
Nature is a convenient and elastic term, and all 
that it contains deserves our notice. But in its 
connection with the unseen, divine original it has 



THE CREATION AND MAN 17 

its permanent meaning. It has been honored in 
many ways ; but the most graceful tribute ever 
paid to it is at the opening of the earliest record, 
where in a single brief sentence, without a break, 
the Eternal stands with his works. His glory 
reaches over, and draws the worlds to itself and 
holds them there. Not even a comma separates 
God and the created. "In the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth." Astronomy, 
Geology, the whole science of nature has never 
written a more majestic line. " In the beginning 
God created the heaven and the earth." These 
are the words of the record which throughout is in 
accord with them. The account is unparalleled for 
the combining of scientific and religious truth ; or, 
rather, for stating religion in the terms of science 
and giving to science the spirit of religion. In 
this it differs essentially from all other ancient 
stories of creation. 

Many writings which have come to be associ- 
ated with it maintain this fellowship between God 
and his works. They are under his control, are 
used in his service, are clothed with his power. 
His truth is continually illustrated by means of 
his works. Not poets only, prophets, apostles, 
join God and his works in their thoughts. The 
great Teacher made all things, even the grass at 
his feet, explain the ways of God. He made the 



18 THE CREATION AND MAN 

facts of nature illustrate and assist the truths of 
human life. He pointed out the '' natural law in 
the spiritual world." Thus we have our book of 
religion and it is a book of nature. The heavens 
bend over its pages, the ocean rolls around them, 
and the fields bloom with providence. Mountains 
and hills tower above the lines, and rivers run 
through them; among them rise trees in whose 
branches birds build their nests. Trace these all 
back, from book to book, from age to age, and 
you come at length, you are glad to come, to those 
earliest words, so compact with meaning, so rich 
with information, so full of scientific truth, — 
the august, lasting verities of the universe. 

I do not propose to read the weighty statements 
which follow that upon which I have delayed. 
For me there is a wonderful charm in the first 
pages of the first book. So far as I am acquainted 
with literature there is nothing to compare 
with them in the magnificence of their themes 
and the grandeur of their treatment, and the 
tremendous hold they get on thought and life. 
I have given to the record no name. I have 
asserted no claim for it, except that it is a 
writing, and that it has reached us from an 
illimitable past. Some one made it. There is no 
reason to question his belief that he was telling 
the truth. Whence he gained his knowledge and 



THE CREATION AND MAN 19 

assurance he does not tell. His sentences are 
strong and clear, and it is very remarkable that 
they so well anticipate what could not be known 
by observation for a great many centuries. I 
think there is nothing in the history of thought 
more surprising than the general agreement of 
our later scientific knowledge, acquired by long 
and progressive study, with the condensed state- 
ments of this man to whom all that we name 
science was unknown, undreamed. The vexed 
question how Shakespeare could have written 
the plays which bear his name is nothing com- 
pared with the question how this man, who did 
not even put his name to his work, could have 
written the first chapter of the book " commonly 
called Genesis." To ascribe the book to Moses 
does nothing to resolve the matter, for the 
account itself is evidently from a much earlier 
time. To call it tradition is of no service, for 
tradition is the thought of men as really as if it 
were written. And where did the tradition come 
from ? No system of ancient cosmogony can be 
compared with this in value, as this has been 
determined in recent years. I am not using the 
account to teach either science or religion, but as 
an excellent statement of events which antedate 
history. It could not well be improved for sub- 
stantial accuracy, for simplicity, directness, rever- 



5SU THE CREATION AND MAN 

ence, modesty, and the poetic beauty and grace 
which at once enlist and inspire the imagination. 
The old record was not made for a text-book in 
natural history. It was to present God as the 
Creator of all things, and this it does. It has 
been placed at the opening of a series of books 
whose design is to show the ways of God with 
men. It does efficiently what it was made to do. 
But beyond this we have a remarkable agreement 
with our later knowledge, in the thought of the 
Creator, the progress of events, the advance from 
the simple to the complex, from lower to higher 
forms, by indeterminate periods. It is not of 
vital importance that it should be in close and 
perfect agreement with all which is now known. 
If our knowledge were more complete, I think the 
coincidence would be even more astounding than 
it is now. 

There are moments which are of startling inter- 
est. I had these things in mind when a few 
weeks ago I met on the street a very eminent 
geologist, the head of a scientific school, who told 
me as the result of his study that he believed 
the first living creature was a fish. Others have 
reached the same conclusion, but it came to m.e 
then with special force. I opened my Bible as 
quickly as I could, and found that a man far away 
in the wilderness of the ages had written as the 



THE CREATION AND MAN 21 

first words in his catalogue of living things, " And 
God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly 
the moving creature that hath life." Was that a 
lucky guess, or a flash of genius, or the fortunate 
achievement of a poetic imagination ? Who was 
this peerless man ? Where is his successor ? 
Our respect for Adam is variable. But for this 
man, who traces day by day, age by age, the form- 
ing of the heavens, the building of the earth, the 
peopling them, by slow gradation, with fish that 
swim, and birds that fly, and cattle that roam the 
meadows, — who can have less than a proud admi- 
ration for him? What else of his period has 
lasted ? Yet here are the words that come from 
antiquity, once written, once spoken, and never 
lost ; which we read in the light of to-day and do 
not care to change; which expand under our 
eyes, but are never affrighted by our search. 
They are like notes upon the sheet, whose melody 
has not been discovered until now, when men 
whose brain and fingers are full of music wake 
the silence into sound. 

There are other separated accounts of the 
former things. They serve to mark the sublimity 
of this. They resemble one another, and all 
reach into a time when things were not as we 
behold them. They find a beginning, and the 
stages of advance, and at times they give us the 



^2 THE CREATION AND MAN 

story of creation in attractive forms. But they 
do not commend themselves to our judgment. 
They do not begin with the Creator. Usually 
they start with chaos, out of which emerge even 
the gods. With discordant beginnings, the course 
and the meaning of nature could not be the same. 

Yet the other systems are of interest. But 
they are complex, mechanical, making much of 
the apparatus for constructing worlds. They 
are in bold contrast with the dignity and sim- 
plicity and quietness which pervade the descrip- 
tion which comes to us from the Hebrews. The 
account which we have deserves the more praise, 
if, besides being formed, it has kept the integrity 
of its life when all besides has suffered change. 

One is almost compelled, and quite permitted, 
to think that this account of events which no 
man saw had a divine origin, and was preserved 
and transmitted under special care. 

I do not wish to claim too much for one man, 
as if he alone possessed this archaic information 
which, by another route, has now reached us. 
Probably there was a common body of tradition, 
or belief, among the peoples of Western Asia. If 
this is so, it was given to the writer, or writei-s, of 
the first chapters of Genesis to receive the tradi- 
tion, to know its value, to separate from it the 
degrading ideas which are found in other systems, 



THE CBEATION AND MAN 23 

— polytheism, nature-worship, and all which be- 
longed with them, — and to transmit the knowl- 
edge in a form worthy of its character. In this 
the Creator is before all things, and He is to be 
worshipped, and not the works which He has 
made. The simple, spiritual, divine tone pervad- 
ing the record is unexampled in those times, un- 
surpassed in any time. No one will understand 
me to say that these wiiters had any idea of that 
we call science ; any intuitions of our discoveries, 
and foregleams of our theories. But they knew 
that God was first, and that He created, and that 
life ascended to the highest form they knew, 
which is the highest form we know. We are not 
able elsewhere to reach so far into the past. We 
read the story of nature in the rocks, turning the 
leaves and spelling out the words. But the 
broken record is legible only about " half way 
down in the history of organic events," and it is 
not likely that the earlier pages will be recovered. 
An eminent naturalist states it in this way : " The 
dead past has not only buried its dead, but has 
quite effaced the burial places." 

Our account of the creation is remarkable, also, 
for what it does not say. Compare the traditions, 
still preserved in books of stone, which made the 
learning of other peoples, only to admire the 
glearness aud reaspng-bleness of these unstudied 



24 THE CBEATION AND MAN 

annals. Of method nothing is detected. Order 
is declared with surprising intelligence, but no 
bounds are set around the working of the Eter- 
nal, who has the ages in his keeping, with a 
thousand years, a thousand centuries, for a day. 

It has been left for men to find out the ways of 
the Creator, and to study his works; to match 
life with life, and age with age ; to search the 
rocks and bring their hidden treasures to the 
light ; to explore the heavens and learn how stars 
and suns were made ; how the bands of Orion 
were woven and the sweet influences of the Plei- 
ades are distilled. The argument from design to 
the Designer has been contested, but the principle 
survives. Might it not be made to include the 
obscurities among which we live, which give to 
the mind good exercise and fine training? The 
pearl may have been placed at the bottom of the 
sea to give the diver the excitement of plunging 
into the deep and rising with his prize. There is 
thoughtfulness in leaving the world's making un- 
written, save in its deep lines, that we might have 
the pleasure of finding it out; hunting its mean- 
ings and methods, and profiting by the mental 
athletics. What privation it would have been to 
discovery and research, if the written account had 
been complete ! If getting truth is better even 
than having it, the world is well adjusted to our 



THE CREATION AND MAN 25 

advantage. It is to the credit of scientific and 
philosophic study that its results are so liberally 
confirmed by the words of strange origin which 
begin our literature. Learning is far from com- 
plete, as we gratefully confess ; but the grand 
truths which it now presents with enlarging en- 
terprise have high sanction in the laden sentences 
which so long revealed and so long concealed the 
heaven and the earth. It is a large world which 
lies about us ; which has come forth from those 
far-off events. I have not tried to count them, 
but I have been told there are now upon this 
globe a million, or a million and a half, species of 
animals and plants, — the margin is liberal, — and 
that there have been a hundred times as many, in 
inconceivable variety. We look up, and millions 
of suns shine in the firmament we call our own, 
and beyond this are thousands of firmaments with 
their bright worlds moving in grandeur and splen- 
dor, in order and quietness, by a force no optic 
glass can discover, while the careless centuries 
watch their flight. We see so little ! We know 
so little ! There are both wit and wisdom in the 
comment of Cardinal Baronius : " The intention 
of Holy Scripture is to teach us how to go to 
heaven, and not how the heavens go." We can- 
not bring creation into the terms which describe 
our own work. Yet it is instructive to find the 



26 THE CREATION AND MAN 

laws which rule in lesser matters prevailing in the 
larger. Even analogy and similitude have their 
value. It was interesting to have one who had 
been President of Harvard College argue for the 
reasonableness of miracles from the law of the 
parabola; and to hear our American mathema- 
tician say that " the laws of mathematics are but 
the expression of the thoughts of God ; " and that 
the mathematician must cling to " the spiritual 
view of the origin of the universe." It was a 
Christian who wrote, " There is one Lawgiver." 
The beginning of all is found in the strong lines 
which are the record of creation, with the recur- 
ring refrain which marks the periods which have 
no boundary lines, " And there was evening, and 
there was morning, one day." 

But the crown of creation we have not yet 
reached. We have kept in the order of nature. 
A few words complete the history we have 
admired. It is a moment for stillness. The 
earth stretches around us. The stars are over 
us. The fishes range the seas. The birds are in 
the air. Life moves silently in its work. There 
is no one here to think of this, and to enjoy it, on 
all the hills, over all the fields. It is virtually an 
untenanted world; not deserted, but never in- 
habited. Rest for a moment, and think on the 
first man whose foot pressed the earth, whose eye 



THE CREATION AND MAN 27 

looked through the trees. Human history has 
felt no words more eventful than these : " And 
God created man m his own image." Where 
did the writer we are coming to trust learn that? 
Where he learned the things he had told before. 
If he had written more fully ! Perhaps his hand 
was held, and not impelled as some have 
imagined. It is certain that he was nearer our 
own time in his thought than most have been in 
the years between us. There is a modern rather 
than a mediaeval tone in his entire narrative. It 
is steadily progressive, and there are no breaks in 
it. God in the beginning. Light, earth, sea; 
seed, grass, trees ; sun, moon, stars ; living, mov- 
ing creatures in the sea, and on the land, and 
above the earth, — it reads like a family history ; 
and the increasing life reaches its consummation 
in man. The love which He is called for man, 
for some one to be loved ; for one to enjoy life 
and delight in God. 

It is natural to suppose there was a relation- 
ship among all things which had received life 
from the one source of life. The distinct 
periods, whose limit our author appears not to 
have known, would give time for the life to take 
on its higher forms, on its way to the highest. 
What are the stages for, unless it were this? 
" There was evening and there was morning, one 



28 THE CREATION AND MAN 

day. And there was evening and there was 
morning, a second day." The original record has 
a kindly look toward the scientific beliefs which 
now prevail. If the ancient annalist knows how 
long we have been in reaching them, I am not at 
all sure but he smiles at our laggard ways. The 
connection of man on his physical side with the 
world he lives in and with other forms of life 
seems to be demonstrated. Those who have 
given the most attention to this matter, and are 
the best qualified to have an opinion, are agreed 
that this is true. We are indebted to them for 
the pains they have taken to make us intelligent 
concerning ourselves and our past. They startled 
us at first, and there seemed to be reason for 
alarm. But that is over ; and the principle, vari- 
ously modified and defined, appears to be estab- 
lished among thoughtful men. This has come 
about rapidly enough. It is wise to be careful, 
that is, conservative, in affairs of importance, 
especially those with which we are not familiar. 
If a discovery, or a new theory, has any virtue it 
will be willing to wait till its credentials can be 
examined. There is little danger at present that 
scientific discoveries will be kept waiting longer 
than is for their good. The things Avhich have a 
right to live will live. There is no need of saying 
now — I am sorry there was ever need of saying 



THE CREATION AND MAN 29 

— that the new views to which I have alluded, 
which concern the life of men, do not in the least 
separate the world from God. If there is any 
difference to be imagined, it would appear that 
the continual presence of the Creator would be 
even more necessary through the gradual rise of 
man from a humble origin than in a sudden crea- 
tion. "In the beginning God" is firmer than 
mountains and all hills, or "the great globe it- 
self." " The living will " must endure, and move 
in all things. There are more things to be studied 
and known than before, but the truth we knew 
before remains. It is not all an open country 
traversed by wide roads. But the way is clearer 
than it was. The increase of our knowledge of 
God's ways should enlarge our confidence in Him. 
There is in Genesis another account of the cre- 
ation of man of which we know no more than of 
the first. Somewhere, at some time, by some one, 
it was believed, and told, and written, and at 
length placed beside the first. This writer did 
not describe creation in general. He may have 
seen the earlier description or tradition, or have 
heard of it. He began by saying that " the 
heaven and the earth were finished, and all the 
host of them." This lacks the grandeur of the 
other. Then he described the seventh day, the 
hallowed day of rest ; the day made for man, 



30 TBE CREATION AKD MAN 

who, even to this time, does not know the bless- 
ing that is in it. While in many things we 
have advanced, we have lost ground in regard to 
this. A few words of the first watering of the 
earth ; and he wrote his account of the creation 
of the man. " And the Lord God formed," — 
that is much like the other, " God created," — 
" formed man of the dust of the ground," — the 
other writer had shown the dust, — " and breathed 
into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man 
became a living soul." This may have been 
by one act, or by a long-continued bestowal of 
life. The important truth is that it was done, and 
a man was "a living soul;" not merely "a living 
soul," but one constituted by the breath or life of 
the Creator. Our fathers read this, and learned 
its principal truth — God made man. They knew 
that as well as we do. But how was the dust 
gathered up into the shape we bear? They did 
not know. If at this time any one knows, he is in 
hiding. The drawing by the vanished hand is so 
strong that it cannot be mistaken for portraiture. 
The story is well guarded. The meaning cannot 
be missed. I think there is nothing more daring 
and realistic than this. Indeed, I do not think of 
anything in all the books more bold and impres- 
sive. I cannot even try to imagine it, for the 
attempt to give it form would take from its sub- 



TBI! CUEATIon AND MAN 31 

limity. Tliis is the daring picture which makes us 
silent. The Almighty pressed his lips against the 
nostrils of the man who was made of the dust of 
the ground, and breathed in his own breath, and 
man became " a living soul," a divine soul, with 
the breath of the Creator for its highest life. It is 
a picture, a sculpture, a description ; but the one 
vital truth which cannot be missed or misinter- 
preted is this : the breath of God unchanged 
became the breath of man to whom it was given ; 
man received life of the life of God. With this 
divine life he was a living soul. At that moment 
religion became possible. For the first time there 
was in the new earth a person whom God could 
love ; upon whom He could lavish his love, in the 
blessedness of loving, and one who could respond 
with love. If it was a delight to make a world, 
it was much more a delight to make a man who 
could enjoy it. It was a new earth when a man 
had come to live in it, and a new heaven when he 
watched the courses of the stars. It was Godlike 
to make a man. Love imparts itself and needs a 
man to receive it. Love gives joy, and a man 
loved of God will live in joy, and love gives him 
being. Love is in the divine life, and in the life 
which is born of it, and by reason of his life of 
love man can live in the joy of God. Thus love 
interprets life at its beginning. 



32 THE CREATION AND MAN 

Here is the mystery of life. We have it, and 
do not know what it is. There are no words to 
make it clearer. Alone in its presence we are 
silenced. I recall an impressive hour long ago, 
when an eminent naturalist uncovered the heart 
of the smallest bird. It was only a description, 
but the listeners were hushed as in worship, 
when the point of life was reached, revealed, un- 
veiled. He parted the soft feathers, divided the 
delicate skin, opened the fragile framework ; and 
there was the tiny heart, quietly beating through 
it all, its hidden forces working uncomplainingly, 
and holding the fair creature in being, with a skill 
and strength which all the cunning of the world 
could not imitate. It was a moment which has 
never lost its awe, when I saw the life of the 
Eternal throbbing in the heart of a humming- 
bird. 

" And man became a living soul." This is lit- 
eral. This is the important fact in creation, and 
is more easily understood than the events which 
surround it. The picture is simpler than the 
frame, and less showy. A very strong outline 
was drawn, and it was left for men of a later time 
to fill it in. Man was essentially allied with the 
earth, and with forms of life other than his own. 
He came by slow degrees from a very simple con- 
dition to the estate which he has held for the more 



THE CREATION AND MAN 33 

recent centuries. This we are taught. He was 
also especially allied with God by his life, and 
particularly by his spiritual life, in which was 
his likeness to the Creator. What was the living 
soul which man became ? By this he diverged 
from the living creatures around him, not disown- 
ing the relationship, but going away in paths of 
his own. It was the spiritual, to use the common 
term; the psychical, to use the word endeared 
to philosophy, which was to have control, and to 
be advanced. This was the man, who of his supe- 
rior endowments was to have rule over his humble 
neighbors. This is the man for whom religion is 
possible. 

I am especially desirous to emphasize the fact 
of life. I intend to do this all the way. It is the 
continuous thought of these pages. I might have 
entitled them One Life. In the beginning God. 
There was no life but God. Of his own life He 
created all that lived. The process of creation is 
not disclosed. In its nature it is " unthinkable." 
Some things are known which entered into it, 
and we may discover more. But we shall never 
comprehend creation. Things did not come 
forth from God, out of his own being, as fruit 
comes from a tree, as light from the sun. He 
created, and to all that lived He gave life ; gave 
of his own life ; or, if one thinks He gave an inf e- 



84 THE CREATION AND MAN 

rior life, that must have come from his life and 
have been like it. Only life gives life and there 
was no life but God. The vital point, then, the 
meaning, is this, that all things live by the life 
of God. We are startled, silenced, when we 
think that the oak and the ivy are one life ; the 
Cedar of Lebanon and the '' primrose by a river's 
brim ; " the angel and the man ; the archangel 
and the primrose ! Of course life could be given, 
and was given, in higher and finer measure to a 
bird than to a bush ; to a man than to the un- 
discovered form next below him. It was so very- 
much more, and in a form so very much higher, 
that we may well call it a different life. I have 
wished to point out the one origin of life, and it 
is only as it relates to the life of man that we 
are now interested in it. There is his common, 
lower relationship, in being, existence, vitality. 
Then comes the higher, in thought, affection, 
will, and this is man's. Man, only man upon 
the earth, received directly the breath of the 
Eternal, and became a living soul, and was in 
the image and likeness of his Maker. He is man 
by virtue of this which allies him with God, not 
by that which gives him kindred with the life 
that is in the world. He received as the greater 
gift, the divine gift, which was to belong to him 
and to no other, the life of his Creator in its 



THE CREATION AND MAN 35 

highest forms, spiritual and eternal. With this 
creation was completed. The life would need to 
be continued by Him who gave it. The divine 
gift of life would not be withdrawn. "The 
greatest contribution of modern science to human 
thought " is " the idea of the continuity of caus- 
ation " — such is its own claim. Man's chief inter- 
est is in his new life which makes him the child 
of God. He may not disown the physical, but 
he must be constantly mindful of the spiritual 
life. He must look up. He must and can live 
in God, with thought, affection, purpose, con- 
duct. If we think of God as immanent in all 
that lives, as regards man He is also transcend- 
ent, above, beyond, to be trusted and worshipped. 
The divine image must be steadily enlarged by 
thinking of God, conversing with Him, abiding 
under his influence, under the spell of his per- 
fection, changing his desire into thought and 
deed, growing up "in all things into Him." 
No limit is to be discerned. " Godly " is an 
eternal word. It is the largest term which can 
be applied to man. To be " like Him " is the 
brightest vision of the New Testament. The 
reason of it is here, in this divine nature whereby 
a man is the child of God. 

If I have wandered, I could not help it. Let 
us return. The breath of God is the true life of 



36 THE CREATION AND MAN 

man. It is the Man. We call it the Soul. It 
were better to call it the Man. This, not less 
than this, is his distinctive character. 

But when was the soul given ? When did man 
begin ? I turn to the old record which has proved 
its right to respect, but it does not commit itself, 
though a single word would have told us all the 
writer knew. It looks as if man was made of the 
dust, and that when this form was completed and 
endowed with common life, the living soul was in 
a single act breathed into it. This has been a 
common theory and has not been disproved. One 
purely scientific view sees in the soul a develop- 
ment of faculties which are recognized in the 
associated forms of life. It traces the process of 
the increase through the gradual appearance of 
spiritual life. But in this method there is oppor- 
tunity for special additions of spiritual life at any 
time when the advance needs to be promoted, and 
the final result hastened. The belief that this was 
a distinct gift, added to all that was before it, is 
most in accord with the usual, continuous thought 
of men, and is naturally suggested by the narra- 
tive in Genesis. It is a fascinating study, but we 
have to do with it now only so far as to assure 
ourselves that man has a spiritual nature and that 
this is the gift of God. It is preeminently the 
life of God which is given only to man. It is a 



THE CREATION AND MAN 37 

very old question, in what way man received his 
soul. Traducianism and Creationism are obsolete 
terms ; but time was when they were names to 
fight for. Tertullian in the Western Church 
taught that the soul was once for all created and 
then by natural generation propagated with the 
body. Later, Augustine is found wrestling with 
the problem, and offended by Tertullian, turning 
to Jerome with a cry for light. " Teach me there- 
fore, I beg you, what I should teach, what I should 
hold ; and tell me if it be true that souls are made 
now and separately with each separate birth; 
. . . not all from the one soul, of the first 
man, but for every man a separate soul, like that 
one for Adam." The question was of importance 
by reason of its connection with other doctrines. 
Some held that for each individual a new soul 
was created and added to the body and its life. 
While still others, among them Origen and many 
in the Eastern Church, accepted the teaching of 
Plato, that human souls existed from the begin- 
ning, and through the birth of a child attained to 
their actual and personal life. I touch on these 
theories, which once were alive, that we may mark 
how little of novelty there is in the subjects of 
thought. ''Whence came the soul we no more 
know than we know whence came the universe," 
is the remark of a teacher among us. The com- 



38 THE CREATION AND MAN 

parison is good. If we no more know, we no 
less know. Pardon me if I let another, at once 
philosopher and historian, tell us how, in his 
opinion, the case stands to-day. " The Platonic 
view of the soul, as a spiritual substance, an 
effluence from Godhood, which under certain con- 
ditions becomes incarnate in perishable forms of 
matter, is doubtless the view most consonant with 
the present state of our knowledge." " The Loi'd 
God breathed into his nostrils " is the primitive 
form of the more elegant expression, " an effluence 
from Godhood." Thus extremes meet; Genesis 
and to-day's philosophy. It is to the credit of 
both. Nothing since Plato, on the essential truth I 
All I am concerned with is that the soul life is 
from God and of God, and must always be related 
to Him ; for He must sustain what He has be- 
stowed. It was a most notable event when man, 
the being with a soul, appeared. May I let other 
masters speak ? '• The law of generational advance 
has in man undergone a sudden, indeed we may 
say a paroxysmal, alteration. . . . Our own 
species appears, from the point of view of its 
supreme success, not only most exceptional, but 
absolutely alone in the history of this sphere. 
. . . If to-morrow man should disappear from 
the planet, there is no reason to suppose that by 
any process of change a similar creature would 



THE CREATION AND MAN 39 

be evolved, however long the animal kingdom 
continued to exist." The appearance of man 
opened " an entirely new chapter in the mysterious 
history of creation." " Not the production of 
any higher creature, but the perfecting of 
Humanity, is to be the glorious consummation 
of Nature's long and tedious work." 

"We cannot fail to notice the dignity of man in 
this light which is thrown upon his history ; his 
increased worth by reason of the patient care 
which has advanced him in power; and the 
greater assurance that he will continue to be the 
object of the divine love, which will spare itself 
nothing that its work may be perfected. Man's 
history is prophecy. His experience is promise. 
His way leads upward. Tt doth not yet appear 
what he shall be. If any one is curious to know 
Man, I cannot point even now to anything more 
interesting than Plato's account of the soul. We 
recall it ; that there is in man a divine nature of 
which God is the artificer, and that the junior 
gods were set to produce the mortal nature. 
The mortal body was made as if turned in 
a lathe, and in this was placed the immortal 
principle. The two natures had different parts 
of the body, with the neck as an isthmus be- 
tween. It is strengthening to read his estimate 
of the real soul of man : '' After the gods, the 



40 THE CREATION AND MAN 

most divine of all his possessions as being most 
his own." The body is "according to nature 
ruled over by the ruling soul." The soul is a 
goddess, ever taking mind as an ally. The soul 
is to be honored "in the second rank after the 
gods." It is to have care in the present, and for 
all time. "The danger would appear to be 
dreadful if one should neglect it." This is 
wholesome reading. Is it true now as the wise 
old Greek wrote, that " ^ot one, so to say, 
honours his soul properly " ? Let these serious 
words stay in our minds. 

When we think who man is we are not sur- 
prised that in all places he is aware of God. 
What is this but that the undivided life of God, 
being in a man, is conscious of the life which 
has not been imparted, and is in God alone ? 
Why should not the part feel the whole to 
which it belongs ? We cannot be surprised at 
such expressions as " that immediate knowledge of 
God " which is our " normal state of existence," 
the " quickening, life-giving God-sense," and the 
almost divine talent for knowing God. The last 
biographer of Jonathan Edwards relates that 
" the God consciousness was the deepest sub- 
stratum of his being," and that in him was " a 
divine and supernatural light." The same 
divine consciousness is ascribed to men like 



THE CREATION AND MAN 41 

Thomas Erskine and Frederick Maurice. The 
words of Dr. Mulford are vigorous and clear 
when he writes that " man is conscious of the 
being of God, and lives and acts in this con- 
sciousness, and the reality of the being of God 
so comes to him. The being of God is the primal 
truth. It is primitive in human thought ; there 
is nothing before it, nor apart from it, from which 
it is to be derived. Thus the being of God has 
not its foundation in the life of humanity, but 
humanity has its foundation in the life of God." 
I venture to like my own way of stating it, crude 
and formal as it is ; the portion of the life of God 
which is in a man is conscious of the whole life in 
which it belongs. 

It is true, as we are told with wearisome and 
perhaps needless repetition, that we are not able 
to conceive absolute being with an approach to 
completeness. We cannot grasp the infinite. 
Yet within the limit of our powers we can secure 
and retain a knowledge which shall be larger than 
we can bound, and can be thoroughly trustworthy. 
Our thought of the Absolute Being, for whom 
God is the accepted and sufficient name, will be 
more distinct at certain times and in certain per- 
sons than in other minds and under different con- 
ditions. But the consciousness of his being is 
fixed in our nature and cannot be removed, nor 



42 THE CREATION AND MAN 

long suppressed. " The manifestation of the un- 
knowable " is to be found in all things. Then it 
would seem that so far He is not the unknowable, 
if we give to words their usual significance. 
Reality and degree are not identical, and we know 
in part. "The belief in a Power of which no 
limit in Time or Space can be conceived is that 
fundamental element in Religion which survives 
all its changes of form." " This inexpugnable 
consciousness, in which Religion and Philosophy 
are at one with Common-Sense, proved to be like- 
wise that on which all exact Science is based." 
The '' necessary datum of consciousness " sustains 
the confident appeal which is made to it. I have 
repeated the word and thought of Spencer. He 
did not approve the conclusion of Mansel, which 
he quotes ; yet in view of all which has just been 
said, while confessing the limits of intelligence 
and of obligation, in our ordinary manner of think- 
ing and speaking it does not seem too much to 
assert, that "It is our duty to think of God as 
personal ; and it is our duty to believe that He is 
infinite." 

The belief in powers greater than man, in 
nature or beyond it, though often dim and rude, 
hardly to be discerned, is apparently nowhere 
entirely wanting. The universal and persistent 
instincts which stand in our creation are with 



THE CREATION AND MAN 43 

authority. The religions of the world, various 
as the tribes of men, confess a divine presence. 
The Greek saw a Father in Zeus, whom he ad- 
dressed as Father of gods and men. Upon Mars' 
Hill St. Paul appealed to the Athenians whose 
city was crowded with altars, and declared the 
unknown God who made the world and all things 
therein, in whom we live and move and have our 
being, and confirmed his teaching by their own 
poet, Aratus : 

With Zeus begin we. Let no mortal voice 

Leave Zeus unpraised. Zeus fills the haunts of men, 

The streets, the marts. Zeus fills tho sea, the shores. 

The harbours, — everywhere we live in Zeus. 

We are his offspring too. 

Men worship Him, the First, the Last. 

Their Father — Wonderful — their Help and Shield. 

They were " somewhat superstitious," the 
courteous preacher remarked; but from their 
superstition he attempted to lead them in rational 
ways to God. The argument for his being 
which is found in marks of design can never 
lose its force. The common mind will trace 
the signs of thought and plan, and cannot be 
persuaded from it. It will find " a permanent 
guiding influence." The eye is the witness to 
the design which was in its making, and the star 



44 THE CREATION AND MAN 

whose light it catches ; the lily, and the cliild's 
fingers closing around it. 

When Vanini, burned as an atheist, was asked 
if he believed in God he took a straw from the floor 
and made it his answer. Not convincing, possi- 
bly ; but after this method men will reason to the 
end. The habit leagues itself with the native 
feeling of the soul, and looks up to God. It 
takes a finer form, and the love of nature which 
distinguished the Aryan people rises till it finds 
the answering love beyond. But who shall meas- 
ure " the Great Necessity " ? Asa Gray saw the 
presence of design in the " exquisite adaptations " 
in which he delighted; and he believed that 
''without the implication of a superintending 
wisdom nothing is made out, and nothing credi- 
ble." He liked to watch the changing forms of 
life as it was led along ''beneficial lines." His 
innocent, " indefatigable hours " were rich in the 
thought of the God whom he loved. 

It is an impressive moment when a man feels 
himself in the presence of his Creator. The deeps 
of his nature are moved. All that is divine re- 
sponds to the divine life which touches, encloses, 
arouses it. Such moments are not very rare. In 
some degree they are even common. They 
might be more common and to our great advan- 
tage. I call to mind as I say this one whose pop- 



THE CREATION AND MAN 45 

ular fame among us began with his " Lectures on 
the Plan of the Creation." His voice hesitating 
with a strange language, his hand skilful to draw 
what he could not tell, his new learning, his mag- 
nificent countenance, carried him quickly into his 
deserved and sustained renown. Yet there were 
few times in his long life when the man was seen 
so grandly as on the day when he opened his sum- 
mer school at Penikese. The island barn had 
been made ready, the swallows whose nests were 
undisturbed flew in and out, the breeze from the 
sea came pleasantly through the open doors, the 
scholars who had gathered for the rare privilege 
of learning from him waited for his voice. He 
was not the teacher, not yet ; the peace, the light, 
the young life, the surrounding waters, the out- 
lying world and worlds, appealed to his sensitive 
heart, and he could not teach. He could only 
pray, and bid the rest pray with him. Into the 
light, into the spirit which was closer than the 
air, to the Creator among whose works they stood, 
silently he breathed out his prayer. He had not 
thought to do so, probably; he felt the divine 
presence, and he had to speak to it in adoration, 
before he spoke to men of its works. Thus life 
confessed the fellowship of life. He was drawn 
aside, drawn and impelled. Nothing in all the 
history of his schools is finer than the sight of 



46 THE CREATION AND MAN 

that great soul exchanging thought with its 
Maker. He is renowned in the scientific world 
for "classification." He classified himself with 
God. 

After that it was little to write that " A physi- 
cal fact is as sacred as a moral principle." For a 
physical fact is a moral principle. Whether a 
divine thought is expressed in stone or statute, in 
the descent of a glacier or the framing of a law, 
it witnesses to its origin. '' Our own nature de- 
mands of us this double allegiance," he said. This 
double allegiance ruled in the old astronomer, 
who looked at night from among his sheep into 
the nearer sky, and sang of the stars and Him 
who lighted them ; " The heavens declare the 
glory of God." Then he lost sight of the stars, 
and still he sang, " The law of the Lord is perfect, 
restoring the soul." His whole being thrilled 
with the glory and perfection, visible and invisi- 
ble, till he longed to be in harmony with the 
beauty around him. ''Let the words of my 
mouth and the meditation of my heart be 
acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my rock and 
my redeemer." Here, again, was the life in a 
man claiming kinship with the divine life which 
it felt. 

To come nearer, one of the most sublime places 
on which I have ever stood was the upper bridge 



THE CREATION AND MAN 47 

of a large steamer in mid-ocean and at night. 
The ship with her hundreds of souls was quiet 
beneath, while driven onward by the hidden forces 
witliin her. The throb was felt, the power was 
concealed. Around stretched the sustaining sea, 
in the dimness unpeopled. Above were the silent 
heavens, pointed with light, and closer than the 
world, clearer to the sight than the deck over 
which the shadows of men flitted. It was, in its 
feeling, almost to be away from the earth and 
among the stars. Then the gray-haired officer 
turned his optic glass to a planet thousands of 
miles beyond, and caught its light, and learned 
from it where we were upon the waste of waters. 
A sailor stood with a lantern that the telltale 
figures might be registered. There was no sound. 
Solemnity as of another world rested on the little 
group of men. To my unaccustomed heart it was 
more than easy to feel the life which filled the 
limitless space, to see the fingere which marked 
their courses for the stars, to be aware of God. 
For it was life answering to life. 

How delightful, how superb, for man to know 
God, to be assured of his presence ; to know him- 
self, also ; to be conscious of his life, to feel the 
fellowship of his breath with the breath from which 
it was breathed, and the intercourse of soul with 
soul ! I do not know that it is demonstrated. 



48 THE CBEATION AND MAN 

Perhaps it is better. The best things are rather 
felt than proved. 

The conscience, too, speaks for God. It repre- 
sents Him in the human soul. It recognizes its 
sovereign, and declares only its derived authority. 
All the provinces of the right acknowledge Him. 
The moral order of the world calls for a moral 
orderer ; a power ruling for righteousness ; insur- 
ing the good of those who do right, and with 
judgment visiting the evil-doer. We may find on 
every side, without, within, the " indelible marks 
of a morally constituted world, moving toward 
righteous ends." Kant was reasonable in his 
argument that in another world the deserts of 
men, delayed here, must be meted out to them, 
and that this means God. "For right is right, 
since God is God." Even beyond the thought of 
results, of reward or loss, truth and right claim 
our allegiance. With authority and high sanc- 
tions does duty address itself to us and command 
obedience. 

Turn where we will, in the mind of man lies 
the necessity for God, the Eternal, the Perfect, 
the Almighty. We like the simple description 
which Victor Hugo gives of the old woman : '' A 
pious creature, poor, and charitable to the poor 
and even to the rich, who could just write her 
name, ^ Marguerite,' and believed in God, which 



THE CREATION AND MAN 49 

is knowledge. There are many such virtues down 
here, and one day they will be up above, for this 
life has a morrow." 

I am not trying to demonstrate the existence 
of God, as if to those who do not know it. I 
am not ignorant of the replies that are spoken 
after our reasoning. There is sadness in them all. 
It would be a terrible thing to live in a world 
without God. It is a fearful thing to live and 
not see Him. "I will not leave you orphans," 
the Teacher said. After all replies men still 
know there is God. It is man who knows it; 
who feels it in himself, sees it in the world, 
reads it in history, discerns it in experience, 
perceives it in the moral order which encloses 
him, finds it when he sounds his deepest intui- 
tions ; the feelings, principles, aspirations, which 
underlie his life. If to any one it seems too 
bold a thing to say that man is a necessity, it 
is not much too bold. For akin to the need for 
God, if any life is to be, is his need of one to 
know Him; to receive of his life and love; to 
braid the thread of divine thought which encom- 
passes him with the thread of human thought 
which, unbroken, reaches the Eternal. Life 
must create. It is its nature and pleasure ; and 
creation is the larger name of man. It is a 
stupendous truth that man knows his Maker and 



60 THE CREATION AND MAN 

is instructed to call him Father, for that is his 
Name. 

I have spoken the two words which are at the 
opening of our study — God, Man. In the begin- 
ning God, afterward man ; and the life of God is 
the life of man. "The descent into our own 
souls is the ascent to God." " To penetrate the 
secret of man is to discover the truth of God." 
" He hath made everything beautiful in its time ; 
also He hath set eternity in the heart of man." 



II 



THE COURSE OF MAN IN THE OLDEST 
LITERATURE 



THE COURSE OF MAN IN THE OLDEST 
LITERATURE 



The new world had its tenant. He was in the 
image and likeness of the Maker of both house and 
householder. It was fitting that it should be so, if 
the world was to fulfil its design, and there was to 
be agreement through the whole plan and in the 
method of its working out. Neither man nor 
world was a mechanism which could run, or was 
desired to run, by its own force, or after its own 
skill. The power wliich had made was the power 
which was prepared to keep. Between God and 
the earth was man. By steps which we cannot 
measure, or describe, he had come to his estate ; 
and to all which made him like the living creatures 
over whom he had a delegated dominion, and who 
answered to the names he gave, was added the 
spiritual endowment in which he was like his 
Creator. The union of the two kinds of life was 
exact, but the difference between them was infi- 
nite. The words under which so many have passed 
into the sacred quiet of Mount Auburn remind us 



54 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

in our most thoughtful mood of a separation which 
was distinct from birth : " Then shall the dust 
return to the earth as it was ; and the spirit shall 
return unto God who gave it." The part which 
was "contextured in the Loom of Heaven," as 
Carlyle describes it, is to be laid aside. But the 
spirit ascends. " Well said Saint Chrysostom, 
with his lips of gold, the true Shekinah is Man." 
In him God's presence is manifested to our eyes 
and hearts. To tell precisely where the line 
which divides must be drawn is beyond the wit of 
man. I think that we prefer to have it so. But 
man was created in the " image of God." The 
description is exalted. There is no stop, no pause 
even, on the way. The likeness reaches the Cre- 
ator. By no stretch of the imagination could 
man be said to be in the likeness of anything 
which had been made. How completely all 
thought of an origin less than divine is ruled out 
by such a word as " image " ! The greatness of 
man proclaims the greatness of his Creator. But 
is the word "image" proper? Evidently it is. 
If man is not an accident, a chance appearance, 
the thought which he has fulfilled belonged to one 
greater than himself. To be able to think man, 
and to give him being, required God. Man is to 
be accounted for. No way has been found but 
this. That man is able to think of God and does 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 5^ 

tliink of Him, is suggestive of his origin and 
descent. Pascal's familiar words are heavy with 
meaning : '' Man is but a reed, the weakest in 
nature, but he is a thinking reed. Were the 
universe to crush him, man would still be more 
noble than that which kills him, because he knows 
that he dies, and the universe knows nothing of 
the advantage it has over him." The fathers felt 
the divine creative presence. They certainly did 
not worship " an absentee God, sitting idle ever 
since the first Sabbath, at the outside of his uni- 
verse." They believed in providence, in a special 
providence, and felt there was a power around 
them and beyond them to be worshipped and 
loved. They lived in his light, died under his 
shield, looked for his reward. They were " made 
of the same stuff of which events are made." It 
is not difficult to trace in man the likeness to his 
Maker which is his grand distinction. He thinks, 
reasons, recalls ; he has conscience, will, freedom ; 
he can govern and judge himself; he has visions 
of the future, with aspirations and ambitions 
which resemble foreknowledge ; he feels his end- 
less life. With this he knows his Creator, listens 
to Him, speaks to Him, obeys Him, loves Him, by 
virtue of the response of his nature to the life 
which gave it and maintains it. In a phrase 
written long afterward, he is a " partaker of the 



56 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

divine nature." In the revised version a psalmist 
is made to say that man was made "but little 
lower than God." We prefer the epistle which 
shows him "a little lower than the angels." 

We have not come upon that word until now, 
for it is not in our present purpose, and I do not 
know where the angels should enter in. Before 
man, doubtless, but in the same order of intelli- 
gence, for we can hardly think of the vast spaces 
as uninhabited save by the Eternal, or of his 
countless years as giving Him no fellowship be- 
yond Himself. There is room for all that we 
wish to imagine, and imagination has neither 
neglected nor overstepped its opportunity. What 
we read of angels enhances the dignity of man as 
of one esteemed worthy of such ministries as are 
ascribed to the celestial beings, whose appear- 
ance is in dazzling light and gleaming robes, 
when some rare event calls for their presence. 
Yet their service is with discrimination. 

Ruskin's remarks will be in place here : " You 
will always find that, in proportion to the earnest- 
ness of our own faith, its tendency to accept a 
spiritual personality increases ; and that the most 
vital and beautiful Christian temper rests joyfully 
in its conviction of the multitudinous ministry of 
living angels, infinitely varied in rank and power." 
Instances of their ministry, as we all know, are 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 57 

frequent in our sacred records, and in the annals 
of other peoples. They had their part in the one 
grand purpose which moves in our Scriptures. 
But it is a significant fact, which carries evidence 
of the sincerity of the writere of the Gospels, and 
of the restraint under which they held them- 
selves, that when Christ came angels were at the 
manger, but that at the end they were not at the 
Cross. Legions might have been summoned, but 
not one brightened the darkness by the shining of 
his wings. 

Few truths could be of more service in bring- 
ing man to the right apprehension of himself, 
and of his place in the univei*se, in quickening 
a high self-respect and a regard for his splendid 
possibilities in character and achievement, than 
that which at once declares and continually 
asserts his relation to the Eternal. We have 
grown so accustomed to low views of humanity 
that our reckoning is at fault. We are like ships 
that have lost their place and can get no observa- 
tion by reason of thick clouds and broken instru- 
ments. Dead reckoning is a poor reliance. Who 
is responsible for the inaccurate, dishonoring 
opinions which prevail concerning man it were 
of no use to inquire, unless possibly we should be 
led to see the truth Avith our own eyes and judge 
with our own mind and heart. But it is only 



68 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

just to say that the Bible is not to be charged 
with this misleading, for it labors to persuade 
men of their greatness, and to induce them to 
make this actual, to regain their birthright, to lay- 
claim to all which is designed for them. The 
writers depict men as they find them, and the por- 
trayal is sad; but they do not stop on this. 
Their design is not to make us aware of our 
misery, but to bring us out of it. They set forth 
the beginning and the true end. They deal with 
the present, but they pronounce this neither the 
beginning nor the close. They declare it a 
departure, and reach out a hand to guide men in 
the right way. They cover reproaches with 
promises. As at the first, the evening and the 
morning make the day, and the morning lasts. 
The Bible has suffered at the hands of those whom 
it has sought to help, when they have refused to 
read its teachings through to the closing 
sentences, with an intelligent thoroughness, but 
have made selections, according to their inclina- 
tion and disposition, and have missed its spirit, 
and the steady trend of its instruction, the 
glorious uplift of its truths. " O Israel, thou 
hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine 
help. . . . O Israel, return unto the Lord 
thy God ; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity ; " 
thus the Hebrew prophet summoned his people 



COUBSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 59 

to their place. Repent, Return, are characteristic 
words. " Remember from whence thou art fallen, 
and repent, and do the first works," is one of the 
latest calls of the New Testament, with the Good 
News of God. The teaching is not that man's 
ascent, while real, is too slow, and needs to be 
aided and hastened ; but that there should be a 
turning, a returning, and then an advance. The 
word of Christ to the Jewish ruler is as full of hope 
and promise as of counsel — " Except a man be 
born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
The man saw the meaning of the words, as his 
answer shows. But the call and promise were 
renewed and with added force. 

It is in the light of these teachings, at once 
profound and sublime, holding the past and the 
present in their view, that President James 
Walker's words find their significance : " The 
Gospel is a Divine dispensation of encourage- 
ment." If any one bases his low estimate of 
man and his estate upon the Bible, it is because 
he has not read it. No book which deserves 
reading can be read by disconnected portions. 
Sometimes in our impatience with the deliberate 
movement of a book we take the last pages before 
their time, to see how things " come out." I 
think if men had taken this method with the 
Bible they would have been less offended by the 



60 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

events through which the history moves steadily 
toward its consummation. I do not say that the 
last should be read first, but that it should be read. 
Seeing we have the end, it may be well sometimes 
to begin there. The final view of man is good 
enough to satisfy any one. But the line is un- 
broken from the beginning. One ray of light 
connects the earth and the sun, and shows us 
both. 

Nor is the depressed and depressing view of 
man to be so much charged upon the theologians 
as some have hastily said. They have indeed 
many times drawn in dismal colors his condition 
and his destiny. They have at times aroused 
more fear than hope, which was not Script- 
ural. But they have not failed to remind men 
from what a height they have fallen, nor to point 
out the way of recovery. They have had a high 
idea of the value of a man, although their views 
conflicted with their opinions on other subjects. 
If they have limited expectation under the stress 
of their philosophy, they have still declared the 
origin of the race and drawn in weary lines its 
departure. It may be, and it may not be, strange 
that readers have missed the better part of their 
teaching through the offence of the other portions. 
This has not been fair, but the blame for the im- 
pression they have left lies not altogether at the 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 61 

door of the old divines. 1 am not called to defend 
them. They belong in their time. They had 
their work and did it, and exceeded it. They had 
the approval of strong men. They made strong 
men, who thought and dared and achieved. The 
old systems lacked gentleness, but they abounded 
in vigor. If they were not encouraging, they 
were robust. We see defects in their philosophy. 
Let us not overlook the witness which was in 
them, or their conserving nature, or the special 
place which was assigned to each in the proces- 
sion of theologies. What has been said of one of 
the greatest of the old masters might be said of 
others : that in their intense desire to exalt God, 
and to have Him seen in his sovereignty, man 
was made to appear small. He was nothing, that 
God might be everything. It is against that con- 
clusion I have been contending. If one makes 
comparison of man with his Maker, man must of 
necessity be small and of slight account. We are 
not called to such a contrast. While, on the 
other hand, the greater God is, the greater is he 
who is made in his likeness ; and the greater man 
is, the greater is God who is his Maker, and 
whose image he bears. Father and child stand 
in common grandeur, even while the grandeur of 
the Father is infinite. Indeed, a part of the 
greatness of a man, a sign of his worth, appears in 



62 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATUBE 

the unbounded reverence wherewith he stands, 
kneels, before his Creator. 

An attempt has been made by a great preacher 
to show the " dignity of human nature from its 
ruins." He finds in pieces of paved road and an- 
tique milestones, in broken walls and fallen 
columns, witness to the greatness of perished 
cities and empires. So he discovers "the true 
majesty of human nature itself, in the tragic 
grandeur of its disorders." In the worst passions, 
in hopes and fears, in false religions and gropings 
for light, in spiritual intelligence astray from 
truth, in the blind, uncertain thought of God, he 
discerns the marks of a higher estate. This is 
ingenious and interesting, and has its value. 
But we reach the same end by a shorter path as 
we mark the dignity of human nature as shown 
by its origin. Whatever has come in since, the 
start was noble. It could not have been better. 
In the despoiled temple we imagine the Parthenon 
in its integrity. If we had the plans of the 
architect, from which it was constructed, and 
knew his design, we might reach even a higher 
estimate of its majesty. This advantage we have 
when we stud}^ man. The order of events is the 
true order of history. In the beginning, God; 
then man, whose life is the divine breath, and the 
end toward which creation slowly moved. The 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 63 

summit was reached. The world had come to its 
meaning. In man the Creator was in affectionate 
and intelligent connection with the world. It 
was not to be ruled by power, but governed by 
love. The response of the world to its Maker is 
from the heart of man. We do well to appreci- 
ate the divine intent. Speaking after our own 
manner, if God was to keep the world He must 
keep man. He was the one point at which God, 
who is spirit, could enter the world's life. If He 
lost man He lost the earth. It is not self-praise 
if, standing here, we exclaim. How magnificent is 
Man ! How fine his nature, the thought, the 
will, the love, the conscience, the choice, the 
divine life ! What may we not look for as the 
powers of man come into use, grow by exercise, 
prove themselves in conduct, construct character, 
reveal the Eternal in whose likeness they have 
their being ! 

There is one life ; of that life is the life of a 
man. It is to be kept true to itself ; to be in him 
what it was before he knew it. The higher 
nature is to rule the life. I give a rough illus- 
tration. I fill my cup from the brook by the 
way. The water is not changed in the transfer. 
The brook is in the cup. The breath of the 
Creator is not changed by entering the nostrils of 
the man, and is not to be changed beyond them. 



64 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

If we consider who and what man was at the 
first, it is clear that his business in the world, up 
to the limit of his powers, was to be like his 
Maker; to tliink, choose, live like Him. By 
being like God he was to preserve himself and 
justify his appointment as the crown of creation 
and the head of the world. Surely there is 
something superb here. With all his ambition 
and pride and glory, no man has ever esteemed 
himself highly enough. Many have made wrong 
estimates, and have been conceited and foolish. 
But no one has put too great value upon his 
birthright in having for his daily life the breath 
of the Eternal. Pride would exalt itself, if it 
would become rational and ascend into Religion. 
If there is honest comfort in self-respect, here is 
its boundless opportunity. Godly, Godlike, is 
not a word merely, a well-sounding adjective, 
but the honest expression of all that is becoming 
in that divine life which is man. It would be 
truth in the inward parts corresponding to the 
eternal truth. It would not be imitation, but 
the natural expression of being. Nothing could 
be more explicit than the requirement of Clmst, 
which we may well accept as the privilege of the 
beginning, "Ye therefore shall be perfect, as 
your heavenly Father is perfect." St. Peter 
quoted from Leviticus, " Be ye holy, for I am 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 65 

holy." He added that " divine power hath granted 
unto us all things that pertain unto life and god- 
liness, through the knowledge of Him that called 
us by his own glory and virtue." 

The time has come for another new word. We 
are advancing in philology. There is a term 
which is essential to moral character, that is, to 
manhood. No one would hesitate to say that 
the man ought to preserve his life in its purity 
and divinity ; ought to keep the divine breath 
which he has received like the breath of which it 
was an inseparable part. He cannot improve it ; 
let him preserve it. Even without a command- 
ment, the propriety of this is evident. There 
is obligation, responsibility; the words grow as 
we think. As defining the man's relation to 
himself and to his Maker "ought" is a serious 
word. It carries a theology in its letters. It is 
a covenant and a sacrament. In its principles it 
is as firm as gravitation, or anything which in 
our poverty we call " law." It is character, it is 
life. It holds honor and well-being. It is re- 
ligion. It connects man with the universe and 
the Creator. When we call conscience " the vice- 
regent of God " we write " ought " in large let- 
ters. We have " the inflashing " upon the con- 
science of that which we must do, and we assent 
to this, and meet without complaint the result 



66 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

of our misdoing. This is our original nature. 
What is the ground of this authority over us ? 
It has been said to be in our creation. We 
do not feel this, for our making was not of 
our desire. Nor do we feel that strength 
gives the right to rule, nor does experience of 
results content us. We get farther back into 
the nature of the Creator. He is perfect. To 
be like Him is to be perfect. We know that the 
best should be enthroned, and that our allegiance 
should be given to it. This reason declares, and 
conscience, and nature. Here we have the best 
in stability and strength. Sa}^ " God is love,'.' and 
no more is to be desired. To require the man to 
be like his Maker is to ask him to be his best, 
the best man he can be. " Our chief want in life 
is somebody who shall make us do what we can," 
the philosopher said. Duty is that friend ; unob- 
trusive to the willing, but unswerving as the 
poles. 

There is often a comfort in this fact. When 
we are bewildered among questions of conduct, 
we come back to this with assurance. Here the 
ground is solid. It is a strong passage in the life 
of the soldierly English preacher, Frederick Rob- 
ertson, when there came to him accumulated 
trouble — the ruin of a friendship, the breaking 
of his health, deep darkness which buried the 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 67 

light in his soul — and liis early faiths were shat- 
tered ; one truth remained and to that he clung, 
and with it fought his way to safety. It was this, 
'' It must be right to do right." Good I But 
what is it to do right? What is right? "Be 
true," he said, "be true." True to what? The 
eternal answer is in the beginning, is here, is 
everywhere, is forever. Be yourself ; and yourself 
is of God's self. Be Like Him. Think, desire, 
will, with Him. " Thy will be done." Religion 
needs this vigor of right conduct; to be robust 
in virtue. The point is well made, that religion 
is not morality touched by emotion, but emotion 
touched by morality. If the life were obedience, 
it would be in liberty, for there is no other obe- 
dience. It would be glad, for it is the thought of 
the eternal gladness, and as natural as the fra- 
grance of flowers, the song of birds. I do not 
know that this had any name at first. In the time 
of Moses, when conduct had taken on more form 
it was called Love, and no better name was found 
when Christ defined it. He connected this with 
life when He bade his disciples, " If ye love me 
keep my commandments." It was in all its course 
delight, blessedness responding to blessedness, in 
a rivalry of pleasing. This was at the first. It 
seems to have continued. It is one of the uni- 
versal traditions, that the first dwellers upon the 



68 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

earth knew an " Edenic happiness," which means 
truth, rightness, obedience. " This belief in an 
age of happiness and of innocence in the infancy 
of mankind may be found among all peoples of 
the Aryan and Japhetic race ; " and " this is one 
of the points where their traditions find them- 
selves most evidently on common ground with the 
Semitic stories which we find in Genesis." The 
Egyptians had their golden age to which they 
continually looked back. It was the time of Ra, 
" who inaugurated the existence of the world and 
of human life," and who ruled the earth. To 
assert the superiority of anything above all that 
could be imagined, it was sufficient to say that 
" its like had never been seen since the days of the 
god Ra." We move on ; but I cannot attempt to 
describe the various views of the students of man 
and his history. There is no need of doing it 
here, nor does it concern my design. 

Man is presented by one school as " the crown 
and glory of the universe and the chief object of 
divine care, yet still the lame and halting creat- 
ure, loaded with a brute-inheritance of original 
sin, whose ultimate salvation is slowly to be 
achieved through ages of moral discipline." But 
sin and salvation are here diverted from the usual 
and natural meaning of the terms ; yet even thus 
there is ''a struggle between his lower and his 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 69 

higher impulses, in which the higher must finally 
conquer; " and there is claimed to be in this "the 
strongest imaginable incentive to right living." 
Or, again, we are told that "- man rises out of the 
animal stage and becomes a man," and thus 
comes under the law of God, " the law of right 
and wrong." 

It is of importance to mark that the idea of the 
right, of duty, of the ought, holds its place in 
this method of regarding life. The persistence of 
that truth is to be always in mind. What I have 
to insist upon is this, as a part of the larger 
truth, that in some way, at some time, " man be- 
came a living soul," a soul like the divine life, and 
that in the course of time there was one walking 
the earth who had the faculty we name " Con- 
science," which binds a man to his Maker in a 
common nature, with a community of purpose 
and conduct. There was a person who ought. 
Infinite and finite are words easil}^ spoken ; but 
let us not fail to notice that, with all the distance 
between them, they are in the same line. 

We are brought now to the real and vital ques- 
tion : what, under the conditions of his life, this 
person would do. In some way man came to be 
man. Let all the time which is thought neces- 
sary be taken for this. It is certainly not unrea- 
sonable, but to be expected, that this coming of 



70 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

age should be attended and followed by a time of 
true manhood, upright, honest, godly; and that 
unbroken happiness should prevail. What fol- 
lowed does not make this irrational. From the 
time when man found himself he may well have 
lived in gladness until the time when he lost him- 
self. That he pushed down, or pufehed up, into 
another estate is clear. But he may have paused 
on the way from an innocent animal to whatever 
came afterward, and paused long enough to enjoy 
the rest. From this he may have made a new 
start. 

I am well aware that this view is not in accord 
with the independent opinions which are cherished 
by many students ; that they see no space for 
paradise with a true and righteous manhood ; 
no pause in life into which it could have been 
set. The emergence from a lower condition is 
constant, and constantly forward. By slow 
degrees man acquired higher qualities, and 
ascended to his true estate. There is no reason 
why this doctrine of ascent should not include 
the happy condition which the traditional litera- 
ture we possess clearly describes. The weight 
cast into the scales of opinion by a few pages 
of unknown origin may not be great, but it 
would seem to be heavy enough to move the 
beam which is held by an impartial, uncom- 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 71 

mitted hand. If we are left to inference, cer- 
tainty is impossible. 

Man was not alone in the world. He touched 
life on every side. It is not easy to define his 
relation to it in definite terms. The alliance of 
man with the life around him and beneath him 
is delicate and mysterious. It is real ; but the 
process of advance from it is not perfectly clear. 
Much of our reasoning seems to do discredit to 
the less endowed creatures, to depreciate the 
inferior life by comparison. It is true that what 
is proper in them may be wrong in a man. Yet 
they live out their best nature. If man had done 
so, the story of the world had been very different. 

In this connection it is impressive, instructive, 
to observe the care of God for the humbler 
creatures whom He had made, and their recogni- 
tion of his goodness. Classical literature knew 
nothing of this, but in the Hebrew Bible it has its 
place. The Hebrews were a people of less culture 
and taste than the Greeks, but they had a fuller 
idea of God. Their account of the attendant 
providence is far in advance of the other descrip- 
tions. Let me read a verse or two from an unknown 
Hebrew writer: "The young lions seek their 
meat from God. These all wait upon Thee, that 
Thou mayest give them their meat in due season. 
Thou openest thine hand, they are satisfied with 



72 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

good." It would be difficult to match this thought 
in the poets of other nations. When we attempt 
to adjust our relations with these companions in 
other orders of life they are at a disadvantage 
which is insuperable, in that they cannot speak 
for themselves. If only our poor relations could 
tell their thoughts ! Who looks into the eyes of 
a fine dog, down into the deeps of his life, and 
does not pity him that he cannot speak ? Perhaps 
it was meant that our fellowship upon that side 
should not be very close, lest we forget whose 
children we are. But we do not smile at the poor 
Indian's thought of the continued companionship 
he shall have in "that equal sky." 

There is something natural, kindly, helpful, in 
the friendship of man with his less favored 
kindred. I do not know that this can be taught 
or learned. It seems to be nature's assertion of 
itself : life reaching down somewhat as it reaches 
up. Kinship makes itself felt. I can readily 
imagine the delight of St. Francis of Assisi in 
preaching to birds. " My little sisters, the birds," 
he said, and he bade them praise their Creator 
who had given them liberty to fly about every- 
where ; and had given them the air to live in, and 
had fed and clothed them, and preserved them in 
the ark. The birds listened, bowing their heads 
and spreading their wings, and by their songs 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATUBE 73 

showing that the Father had given them joy 
exceeding great. 

He spoke and they sang. It were a pity to ask 
if they knew what he said, and answered it. They 
had life in common with him. They were '' the 
clothed form" and spirit of the air. Their pres- 
ence found him and his presence moved them. 
They enjoyed this, and it was pleasant to him. 
Let us leave something for imagination and fancy. 
The preaching, at least, was real ; whether it was 
heard and heeded is another matter. But it 
is pertinent to say, that if the hearing and 
responding are essential to preaching, much 
which goes by that name has a questionable 
title to it. 

We are learning to be more than kind to those 
who are more than faithful ; yet one holds his 
friend " better than his dog " and " dearer than 
his horse." I believe that the form next below 
us has not yet been found. If he were I do not 
think we should care for him. He would be " so 
near and yet so far " that we should prefer our 
dog. I think it is well that we have never 
made his acquaintance. We are not detained 
here. Nearly all the voices bid us go on, — 
hope, aspiration, ambition, religion, — and Hfe 
itself. After all, "our citizenship is in heaven." 

The difference of opinion in regard to other 



74 COUBSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

things is not essential to the purpose we have 
now in hand. We have more important questions. 
Would man, when he had been made a man, 
consent to be godly ; to live as God did, by the 
will of God? Of ability there was no lack. That 
was essential to manhood. The divine breath, 
which was the soul's life, held that unchanged. 
It was a matter of will, of choice, in the use of 
liberty. Let us not be confused by differing 
views of his history up to this place. He came to 
this estate. Whatever else was true, there he 
was, at the point where he was to make up his 
conduct. He was free, or it would have been 
trifling to describe him as in the image of God. 
It was not a liberty in which he might choose 
what should be right. That was utterly out of 
his reach. As well choose the time when the 
sun should rise, or the tide come in. His divine 
nature, before it was his own, had determined the 
right. Richard Hooker's words, often repeated, 
carry no marks of time : " Law has her seat in 
the bosom of God ; her voice is the harmony of 
the world." Mr. Emerson taught that the weight 
of the universe presses down upon the shoul- 
ders of every moral being to hold him to his 
place. It is a heavy load, but there is no escape 
from it. We make it easy by keeping at our 
post cheerfully, and standing erect, holding the 



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COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 75 

universe. Atlas can bear the world if he stands 
straight. The liberty resided in the power to say 
whether he would do that which he ought, or 
would disown it, and do — something else. 
That for a time he chose to do the right is proba- 
ble. How far this continued we have not been 
told ; we have not a tradition, even. Docu- 
mentary evidence is scant, but what we have is 
easily read. Can it be trusted ? The ancient 
writing has been so well confirmed, as far as we 
can trace elsewhere the occurrences which it de- 
scribes, that it seems irrational to leave it here. 
Up to this point the results of later studies are in 
remarkable agreement with it, as we have seen. 
Why should the tradition, if it is that, suddenly 
fail us ? We have the two records, but the parts 
have one editor. These writings are certainly 
convenient in their simple narrative and cannot 
be lightly esteemed. In referring to the early 
chapters of the Bible, I made use of them as a 
statement of events with which science has to 
do. I now use them as a statement of events 
with which history has to do. They are useful 
for this purpose, and have at least the authority 
which belongs to early literature, confirmed so far 
as it may be from other sources. The literary, or 
scientific, presumption is that having been true 
up to this point they continue to be true. 



76 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATUBE 

The transition from man obedient and happy to 
man wrong and ashamed is very abrupt in the 
Hebrew story. Longer time may have been taken 
than the brief narrative suggests. We are read- 
ing of the innocent delight of the man and woman 
in their safe and beautiful life, when, without 
warning, we come upon this : " Now the ser- 
pent." The writer goes on to tell of a change ; 
of the time when man chose not to be like God, 
when his life swerved and went its own way. He 
is soon discovered in this estate, at variance with 
the divine nature which has been given him. 
Now I stand beside the brook and look into the 
cup, and the water in the cup is not like the 
water in the brook. Of this, unhappily, no proof 
is required. The daily papers keep it before our 
eyes. The voluminous histories of all times force 
it upon our notice. It is in drama and poetry ; 
in law and legislation. We see it wherever we 
turn, and feel it within us, and trace it as far as 
history runs. No man who knows God can think 
He made the world of men to be what it is. The 
gift of liberty, essential to manhood, has been 
found a perilous endowment. Account for it as 
we may, here are the facts: explanations are of 
less consequence. 

Who does not observe the change from the 
first days — a change in human thought since the 



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COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 77 

life of the Eternal became the life of man? 
Let it not be forgotten that many regard the evil 
of history and experience as belonging in the 
lower life from which man has imperfectly 
escaped ; — " Very imperfectly," an observer would 
remark, — that he is thought to have risen greatly 
and to be slowly ascending. Give him time, and 
of this there is enough, — what need to be parsi- 
monious when we have centuries at our command, 
— give him the ages, and he will be a credit to 
himself and them. This is an explanation seri- 
ously made, and it is to be seriously regarded. In 
this view the divine life was of such a nature, and 
was given by such degrees, that it was not able 
quickly to overrule the lower life to which it was 
joined. This would reduce obligation to an 
inconsiderable force. The result, instead of 
being a defect, would be an approach toward 
an increasing victory, and from this much 
might be hoped. I have no occasion to dis- 
cuss this, for I am concerned with man after 
he has reached the stage of moral life, or obli- 
gation. I see the advance of man and his im- 
provement in many ways, material, intellectual, 
social, and perhaps moral. But I cannot make 
the long course of the world, as it is working by 
the natural forces within it, a movement toward 
the Creator, and the recognition of itself as 



78 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

his world. I do not see that man untaught is 
finding himself as the child of God, whose spirit 
is divine, and wills to be divine ; who is governed, 
sustained, comforted, by '' the power of an endless 
life." If man of his own nature is on his way to 
a divine life, the road is terribly long. And, oh, 
the pain and sorrow and cruelty and dying all the 
way, from a time no one has discovered ! It 
seems like Napoleon's retreat from Russia, infi- 
nitely extended. 

Are God and Nature then at strife, 
That Nature lends such evil dreams? 
So careful of the type she seems, 

So careless of the single life. 

It is very well to say that in some other world 
man will attain to himself. That is poor comfort. 
Is this good world to go for nothing? Are count- 
less generations to suffer, that thousands of years 
hence there may be one wherein a man knows who 
he is, and begins to live as a man ought to live ? 
I don't believe it. It seems to me not like God, 
and not like man. Improvement, progress, devel- 
opment, — I grant them all. But this is man 
himself ; whose interests are as real now as they 
ever will be ; for whom to-day should have its 
full value as truly as any coming day ; for whom 
the right is as right as it will be seons hence ; to 
whom ought has its full significance, even to the 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 79 

possibility, and, alas I the reality, of the wrong. 
But let me interpose the thought, and ask special 
attention to it, that even if the steady improve- 
ment of man is provided for, and will go on unto 
perfection, there is nothing to prevent the Creator 
and Father from assisting, hastening, securing, the 
movement in any way which He chooses. He 
may do this by a new and special bestowment of 
spiritual life ; or by great men, prophets, and the 
like ; or in the Son of Man. Indeed, seeing how 
much is involved, both for Himself and for the 
world, the natural advance is so deliberate as to 
be almost a promise of added help. 

The Hebrew description is in accord with all 
that we know of the conditions, and in agreement 
with history and constant observation, as it has 
reached us in a few simple sentences out of the 
shadowy past in which some facts stand up like 
mountain peaks. There came a time, whatever 
preceded it, when man was to choose whether he 
would live according to the higher nature which 
was his ; that is, according to the will of the 
Creator whose life was his ; or live in another 
way, after other desires. The thought came to 
him, was given to him, — to the woman who had 
joined him, and then to the man, — of a new 
knowledge, wherein they should be as God. They 
were to be like God by becoming unlike Him. It 



80 COURSE OF MAN TN OLDEST LITERATURE 

is all foolish, of course. Sin is always foolish. 
But the new desire prevailed. This has been 
termed " The Fall." I do not remember that the 
Bible uses that word in describing the event. 
Some one called it " a fall up." But " a fall up " 
is a fall down. The idea that this was merely a 
step in ethical growth is queer, or seems so. 

It is hard to be rid of our questioning, which 
returns upon us : When did man come to the 
place where he began to live ? Or has he reached 
it yet? There is no ethical life till man can 
choose for himself what he will do. Has he not 
yet reached that point? What becomes of 
Abraham if we are still fiercely and with slender 
hopes struggling with our brute inheritance, and if 
this explains our wars and fightings and envyings 
and confusions ! No. The old account is the best 
we have, short as it is. Let the lower nature of 
man be granted. Already he knows his higher 
nature, and he knew it in the garden we call 
Eden. The story is very brief, but is like the 
annals of which it is a part. Regarded as history, 
parable, allegory, picture, there it is, and it is 
consistent in its whole extent. It is a simple 
world which is presented, and simple lives are 
lived upon it. The narrative of the second 
chapter is properly connected with the first. 
A garden describes in pleasant form the abode 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATlTRE 81 

of men, and keeping it was their occupation. The 
life around them was fearless and friendly. 

About them frisking play'd 
All beasts of th' earth, since wild. 

Days were not wearisome in their healthful 
employment, and nights were the repose of inno- 
cence. The joy of life was theirs, and 

In their looks divine 
The image of their glorious Maker shone. 

The commandment which stated their duty is 
in the language of the garden : " Of the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of 
it." The meaning and design were plain to those 
to whom the words were spoken. We have in the 
narrative an illustrated account of things as they 
were. There is a philosophy in the imagery 
which has contented very sensible men. These 
were the conditions, so far as they have been 
disclosed, under which the departure began, and 
the departing took its form from them. It is well 
to mark the simplicity here in comparison with all 
other accounts of this part of human experience : 
" When the woman saw that the tree was good 
for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, 
and that the tree was to be desired to make one 
wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat; 
and she gave also unto her husband with her, and 



82 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

he did eat." Thus the will of God and the will 
of man were opposed. The life of man departed 
from the life of God in desire and deed, in motive 
and direction. These words, and this representa- 
tion, once had meaning, and they have meaning 
still. They bear signs of the primitive times in 
which they first had their place. The truth which 
the simple picture was designed to preserve and 
to transmit has not been outgrown and set aside. 
I have no occasion now to read these compact 
sentences as the theologian must. They did eat 
of forbidden fruit. The fact is all which is here 
of concern to us, and that remains whatever con- 
struction is given to the words. The symbolism 
also remains, however it may be translated. If 
we do not like the terms " tree " and " fruit," we 
are at liberty to make any substitution which 
scholarship permits. There is no reason why we 
should be offended or bewildered. The narrative 
in all its pictorial, representative, symbolic charac- 
ter is harmonious throughout. There is no con- 
fusion in the rhetoric or its images. The garden 
is natural in the story of creation. The garden 
readily suggests the trees. How should we de- 
scribe this in a poem ? We should not put the man 
and woman in a palace, or on a ship, or make the 
testing question one of money or office. The 
garden is the right place for a home and for 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 83 

the proving of life. The serpent offends us most, 
but he is often in a garden, and he is in his place 
in this picture. He has a considerable place in 
the religious symbolism of the ancients. Some- 
times he stands for that which is helpful ; but in 
all mythologies he personifies "the nocturnal, 
hostile power, the evil principle, material dark- 
ness, moral wickedness." The question of the 
Indian concerning the delay of his destruction 
waits for an answer. It is evident that whatever 
the serpent stood for has not been killed. In the 
Apocalypse we read of " the old serpent which is 
the devil and Satan." There are many things in 
the history of the world which are like the things 
the devil would do, if there were a devil. Per- 
haps there is ; or whose footprints are these all 
over the world? He appears in the New Testa- 
ment with the same characteristics which are 
found here. We do not like him. We do not 
like any part of the events in which he moves. But 
the whole story would be harmless if we could 
undo the facts it expresses. We can tear it from 
our Bibles, but only the volume would be changed, 
the paper and binding. We cannot undo the long 
history which takes us back to that place, or to 
one no better, unless we boldly deny that man's 
true life began in the image and likeness of his 
Maker, or at least attained to it and then began. 



84 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

I do not claim to be impartial. The habit of a 
lifetime forbids that. But may I say again, that 
reading as fairly as I can, reading the narrative 
as it was meant to be read, I have seen no record 
of this departure which is more to be esteemed 
than this, for its reasonableness, and the comfort 
and courage which come with it? The accounts 
are all very hard reading. Explain as we may, 
they are very hard reading. 

The narratives which have their place in our 
Bible and its teaching, as we have seen, present 
to us two persons who have come to the estate 
of man and woman, who are well grown up, 
and mature enough to be put in charge of the 
newly made earth, to have dominion over every 
living thing that moves upon the earth, or in 
the sea and air. The man Is wise enough to 
be trusted to give names to all which lives 
about him. He is mature enough, well-endowed 
enough, to receive the commandment of God. He 
stands well in all the first portion of his history. 
There is a royal character which shows his origin. 
He is not born of earth. He moves like a god. 
There comes a change and he moves unlike a god. 
What God wills he wills not. By some road he 
comes to the parting of the ways, and he departs 
from the way of God. It is fearfully sad. A 
man has been ridiculed for weeping because he 



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COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATUBE 85 

sinned in Adam; yet one might be pardoned a 
tear as the fairness of Eden fades away ; fades 
into the common light. 

But why did they — the man and woman of 
the world — why did they, and thus readily, 
become false to themselves and their only friend, 
their Creator, in whose hand their life was, whose 
life was their life ? There has never come any 
one to tell us. They could do it, or they would 
not have done it. But to have been unable 
to do it would have deprived their obedience 
of its worthiest quality, the freeness of it. 
An automatic virtue would have been the virtue 
of trees and birds, extended a little way. I 
believe it was Huxley who said he should be 
willing to be wound up every morning like a 
clock, if it would insure his going right all day. 
I should not. We would almost prefer to do 
wrong now and then rather than never do right. 
Liberty was a genuine gift and held the hazard. 
Manhood required liberty. In its freedom the will 
finds what has well been termed " its inalienable 
prerogative.'' The assertion of liberty and the 
appeal to it pervade our Scriptures. Indeed, the 
Bible would scarcely be necessary without it. 
" Come unto me," " Ye will not come unto me," 
are repeated in a thousand forms. To explain 
this use of the liberty by the stress of temptation 



86 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

is but to throw the unresolved mystery farther 
back. The fall of angels is even harder to account 
for than the fall of man. Moral evil was created 
out of nothing. Goodness could not evolve it, for 
there was no germ to be developed. Man made it 
for himself, as it had been made before. It was 
the act of the will which needs no material. The 
modern explanation is reasonable, and it suits 
itself to the picture of the elder time : that man 
had two natures, that which allied him with the 
earth and the life upon it, and that wherein he 
was the child of God. The lower nature warred 
against the higher, and prevailed. It was not 
properly his animal nature, as some imply; for 
the thought was of his mind, and concerned a 
new knowledge, which was attractive. Plato 
accounted for it in this way : " The divine portion 
within them became extinct through admixture of 
the mortal nature. Then they began to exhibit 
unbecoming conduct." The Hebrew account is 
more graphic. It is a translation, and we can 
make our own. The desire for the fruit and that 
which belonged with it, knowledge and power, 
overcame the commandment, and the authority of 
conscience. Strange? There are things we do 
not understand; but the man is peculiar who 
does not know a conflict like that. St. Paul 
knew it. Has the battle always gone in the same 



y 



COUBSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 87 

way ? Which way ? Experience gives most men 
reason to beUeve that they are born of some one 
like Adam. 

Let us read the story a little farther. There is 
some relief in the thought that in the instance 
before us the suggestion of wrong came from with- 
out. They were guileless, those children of the 
garden, untaught, unlearned in evil, unsuspicious, 
and they had never heard a lie. They did not 
know that one could lie, and seek to thwart the 
will of the eternal goodness. In the childish 
habit of believing, they believed. It is a sign of 
immaturity, but things well-nigh as strange have 
happened since. We have been too often sur- 
prised to be utterly and permanently staggered 
by the first evil choice. Experience might now 
fairly be expected to stand in the place of inno- 
cence for the routing of temptation. Does it? 
The result was in keeping with the deed and its 
conditions. Shame and fear, and the dread of the 
one friendly presence, came at once. The garden 
had lost its delight. There is not much left to 
part with when one has lost himself. They had 
gone through the gate into the strange outer 
world. Driven out, the record says. But they 
were out. " The mind is its own place." More 
than a flaming sword turning every way kept the 
way of the tree of life. Yet it is of profound 



88 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITEHATUBE 

interest to find that they had not lost their confi- 
dence in the One they had wronged. Out of the 
garden, when the mother had in her arms the 
first-born of woman, the mother-heart in joy held 
up the child, while she let her thought ascend to 
God, and her voice raise the song of thanksgiving, 
the oldest psalm preserved to us, "I have gotten 
a man from the Lord." Are not these the first 
rude notes of the hymn sung afterward in Judah : 
" My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit 
hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath 
looked upon the low estate of his handmaiden"? 
There is something grand in the fii"st Magnificat. 
It is a prelude to the second. It is beautiful to 
mark the penitence and faith and joy of the first 
mother as these are preserved in a few lines. Her 
heart is still with God, and his goodness she 
confesses. It is apparent that she tried to bring 
up her two boys in the fear of the Lord. One 
resisted her influence and rejected her teaching ; 
but the other believed her and obeyed the voice 
of God. In him was promise of better tilings. 
But he died ! Died at his altar. The return was 
not then. 

I am grateful that I am not asked to explain 
the terms of this ancient chronicle, to distinguish 
what is the literal fact and what the form in 
which it appears. I cannot think that any man is 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 89 

able to do this perfectly. There was a new start, 
less assuring than the first. There are few clear 
pages in the later history. Whatever was meant 
by death, it has come in. Not that men were to 
live always, and in this method of life ; but we 
must believe that the change which advanced 
them to other worlds would have had no sadness. 
Why should it ? '' The gloom, the knell, the pall, 
the bier," would not have belonged with it. These 
have come, and all they signify ; and the beginning 
was so fine ! What might have been ! But why 
think of that, unless even yet it may be gained? 

There are other accounts of these things, as 
has been said. But they have not gained a place 
among us. There has been no reason why they 
should. Yet they are worth reading, if only for 
the sake of contrast. 

The Aryan nations had a conception of their 
own, of four successive ages of the world. Cre- 
ated things, including man, were to last through 
twelve thousand divine years, each one of them 
comprising three hundred and sixty of the years of 
man. The ages were to be marked by a gradual 
degeneracy which could be expressed in the names 
of the metals — gold, silver, brass, and iron. " Our 
present human condition is the age of iron, the 
worst of all, even though it did begin with the 
heroes/' It was in India that this scheme was 



90 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

most fully worked out. Among the Parsees there 
is a different account. They had the twelve 
thousand years in four equal periods. They gave 
a natural and weighty emphasis to the distinction 
between the light and the dark, which passed 
easily into the distinction between good and evil, 
where it is still found convenient and expressive. 
Ormuzd, Ahura Mazda, the highest divinity, was 
the creator of the good, and dwelt in the perfect 
light. Ahriman, Angra Mainyus, created an evil 
universe, and had his seat in the deepest darkness. 
The two opposing powers were thus apart, with 
an empty and neutral space between them. Into 
this intervening space the earth was lowered 
when Ormuzd had made it, and there it hung 
'' as a kind of outpost." Ahriman saw what was 
done, and was roused to action. He bored a hole 
through the earth, and came out upon its surface, 
where he destroyed the two inhabitants, as he did 
those who were set in their place. Thus the 
earth became the field of contest between good and 
evil. It is impossible to tell with any approach 
to certainty when or in what place the great 
prophet and leader of this faith was born, Zoro- 
aster, otherwise Zarathustra, who was valiant 
against the forces of evil, and worked toward 
the final triumph of the good. For "at last the 
powers of good will win the victory by the aid of 



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COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 91 

Saoshyans, the deliverer who is to come." Then 
" Ormuzd will gather the whole human race into 
the eternal light where he dwells." Thus the 
Parsees, burning the sacred fire, and reverencing 
the Avesta, their most sacred book, lived in the 
presence of unseen forces, paying homage to many 
divinities, to things in heaven and things on the 
earth, believing in practical goodness, expecting 
the judgment of molten metal, and waiting for 
immortality. To describe all their belief in de- 
tail would be impracticable here, if it were not 
impossible. Nor does the modern occidental mind 
receive much light from their explanation of the 
mysteries before us, while it reads them with re- 
spectful interest. In this matter of the departure 
of man from God, to which all history bears wit- 
ness, the accounts are more elaborate, but not more 
satisfying. That Ahriman was stronger than men 
is no help to us. How came he to be stronger? 
How came he to be at all ? Evil is pushed one 
degree farther back, and from the serpent is 
found in the god. But the relentless " Why?" 
has no answer. 

One thing, never to be lost sight of, which 
marks the account in Genesis in lines which can- 
not be effaced, to which our whole moral sense, 
our religious intuition, our profoundest convic- 
tions, assent; before which Conscience stands, 



92 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

throwing its entire force into approbation and 
admiration, is this — that evil did not begin with 
God ; did not and could not. It came in rebel- 
lion against his commandment, in revolt against 
his will, in defiance of his penalty. To the credit 
of the account which bears no name, and in its 
pictures commits itself to our intelligence, let 
this be borne in mind. All our ideas are con- 
fused, and our deepest sentiments are put to rout, 
unless the Eternal is one and good. When all 
is said, do we not return with satisfaction to the 
condensed statements in Genesis, aware of the 
unfolding which is needed at every point, seeing 
room for theories and explanations, and willing to 
have them arise in many forms ? Are we not 
content with the conclusion of an old writer: 
" Behold, this only have I found, that God made 
man upright ; but they have sought out many in- 
ventions " ? I have not forgotten that all these 
things were long ago, and I have assumed our 
relation to them. We were brought up in that 
way. Was not the shorter Catechism — shorter, 
but quite long enough — pronounced in regard 
to it ? I do not mean that we can join our family 
line to the first man who ever was. Yet we must 
be descended from him, or from some first man, 
or first men, who received of the life of his 
Maker. I see no reason for disturbing the com- 



COUBSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 9B 

mon belief. The condition of things around us 
and behind us began somewhere. We have seen 
a rational beginning, and it is easy to trace our 
relationship. I shall not try to bridge the cen- 
turies. Theologians are not agreed about much 
except the piers. From a small beginning has 
come a great family, many families, with a common 
nature which is of greater moment than all which 
separates us into tribes and nations. 

I see no advantage in making excursions into 
unknown lands. It will be found that the relig- 
ious history which opens with these unadorned 
pages is in sad agreement with them in all its 
lengthened course. Perhaps we shall be more 
reconciled to the beginning when we approach 
the end. Men increased. They scattered ; when, 
we cannot tell. They went their ways, and long 
afterward are found in different places, and with 
many differences of condition, but in thought 
and life separate from themselves and from God. 
Wherever they are seen they have a religion, 
that is, a belief in powers beyond themselves 
and mightier than they. It is plain that religion 
is a part of the common nature. In many other 
things the separated peoples are unlike, but 
Plutarch's statement was true in his time, and 
if we give it a wide meaning remains true : "A 
city without a temple or an altar, or some order 



94 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITEBATURE 

of worship, no man ever saw." There is some- 
thing in the man which demands a religion and 
finds it or makes it. Centuries pass, but the 
need remains and bears witness to the reason 
which is in it. We cannot mistake the meaning 
of this flowing on of human thought. It calls to 
mind the reasoning with which Nansen encour- 
aged himself when his theories were at fault and 
his way through the ice was undiscovered. He 
had studied it all out in advance. He expected 
to find a shallow polar sea and a current which 
would easily move him upon it. He came to the 
polar sea and there was no line on board the 
" Fram " long enough to sound the waters troubled 
by his daring. His theory of the current was not 
sustained. He recalled the experience of an older 
voyager, that Columbus discovered America by 
means of a mistake made by another, and then 
he wrote : " Heaven only knows where my mis- 
take will lead us. Only I repeat once more, 
' The Siberian driftwood on the coast of Green- 
land cannot lie, and the way it went we must go.' " 
I am not called upon to define the varying relig- 
ions which the world has known. The study is 
most interesting ; it has drawn many students to 
itself, and the results of their study are in our 
hands. With all this instruction we can answer 
the inquiry which arises at this point, an inquiry of 



COURSE OF MAN IK OLDEST LITERATURE 95 

intense significance in view of the untold millions 
over whom these religions hold sway : What light, 
what help, do they offer to bring men back to 
themselves, and to God, their Maker ? Out of the 
confusion comes no answer to create a certain hope. 
The problem is this : Man was like God. Man 
is unlike God. Can he again be like God? 
Whether men have come up to this place, or have 
come down to this place, here they are. Can 
they attain to the fulness of life ? Lest our prog- 
ress should in any way be hindered by this con- 
cise statement, let us regard man as now without 
a proper likeness to his Creator, whatever be the 
history of the divergence, and inquire if there is 
a way in which he can become, or can be made, 
like God. If there are forces working within him 
to this end, can these be enlarged, quickened, and 
guided by a new divine force ? Is this new 
force to be found? That there is truth in the 
world's religions, and that there have been devout 
souls, more than the few whose names are pre- 
served, who have found their way back, and have 
made for themselves lives of virtue and beauty 
and piety, every one should be ready to admit, 
and with gratitude. But is the way of return 
open to all people, and what is the help which 
seeks them and finds them, and what is the high- 
way up to the approval of God ? After all our 



96 COZTRSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

reading we are checked with the question on our 
lips. The answer would not come to us very 
readily in any case. It is by no means easy to 
understand the religion of our neighbor when it dif- 
fers from our own. To clearly comprehend the re- 
ligion of another nation, parted from us as the East 
is from the West, with a method, and expression, 
and experience, and a habit of mind and heart, 
quite unlike our own inheritance, and fashioning 
themselves in forms which to us are strange and 
confusing and unattractive, is an improbable at- 
tainment, if it be not quite out of our reach. Let 
all this and more be conceded. Still, a way of 
life which is to serve a nation should be discerni- 
ble even to Gentiles. Certainly, if it is pointed 
out to us, we should be able to see it. If its Gos- 
pel is translated into our own tongue, its precepts, 
if not its mysteries, should be disclosed. That a 
system of recovery which suits and serves the 
Oriental does not commend itself to us, in this 
cooler clime, is not of much account. Is there 
a system which serves him, creates hope, quickens 
and rewards desire, secures the rising and advance 
of life, delivers it from bondage, fosters the spirit- 
ual nature wliich is his birthright, as it is ours, 
and all men's, brings him into the peace of his 
own conscience, and changes his fear of God into 
love? This is the real inquiry, and where shall 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 97 

we look for an answer? Anywhere, for all the 
world is open before us, and men are religious 
everywhere. We cannot range the earth at once. 
But we cannot hastily pass by the thoughts of 
men whose nature and need are as our own, and 
who have felt the desires which we know so well. 
No one can enter into the life of the world, into 
the things which are concerned with life and 
destiny, without being profoundly impressed, con- 
fused and saddened. '' Then Job answered and 
said, Of a truth I know that it is so ; but how 
can man be just with God ? " There is no land 
where the question has not stayed ; often, most 
often, in a poor, blind, broken, fearful shape. 
The question is a part of the common nature, and 
there should be an intelligent answer. Is there ? 
Where is it? If we reply, *'It is here," here is 
but a narrow canton of the world. Is it else- 
where ? The history of that instructive question, 
and of the replies which men have fashioned, is 
not easily read. The scroll which holds it is 
wrinkled and torn, and the writing is not always 
legible. 

In such studies as are suggested by these brief 
considerations we soon find that, as in the records 
of the rocks, there are wide spaces to be filled. 
We have the beginning, of which we are assured, 
and then comes a break in the story, while there 



98 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

must have been continuity in the life. Quite 
naturally the mind turns to India, where the 
people are very religious and nearly all the chief 
religions have had a field, and an opportunity to 
manifest their power and defend their authority. 
It is impressive that while so much has taken 
place there, political and religious, India is a land 
almost without a history. We are ready to send 
out the wealth of the Indies, that we may bring 
home the wealth of the Indies, as we are required 
to do. But the ships do not come back with 
Plimsoll's line against the water. It is by no light 
expenditure, and through no simple process, that 
we can secure what the land of the Ganges has 
to offer us of faith and thought. We soon leave 
dates behind us, for they are modern. In that 
land of mystery everything seems old. Unfortu- 
nately things are not old enough. The time of 
Brahma, the creator, the supreme intelligence 
dwelling in deep contemplation, is far away, but 
not so far that we can read a simple story of his 
life. His work was soon completed, and Vishnu 
and Siva, his allies, then received the greater 
honor. The preserver and the destroyer were 
worshipped, with a multitude of divinities of 
many sorts. There was small promise of help for 
the world. Under this teaching sacrifices have 
abounded, but they have been offered in weari- 



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COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 99 

ness of the world, where time and the things of 
time have ceased to be of interest, and in the 
presence of illusion. Even in this dreariness the 
people could nob stand together, dividing the 
burden of their dismay, and sharing whatever of 
good any one chanced to realize, but they sep- 
arated themselves into the rigid castes which 
have remained in their power to hinder and 
oppress. 

There was need of a reformer, and he came. 
It was in the latter half of the sixth century be- 
fore Christ that Siddhartha, the prince, who came 
to be known as Buddha, or the Buddha, was 
born. He early felt the miseries of life and fled 
from them, and devoted himself to the deliver- 
ance of mankind. He found no content in the 
teachings of the Brahmans. He practised austeri- 
ties, but they brought him no rest. At length, 
after a prolonged meditation, he learned the way 
of rescue which he had sought. Then he went 
forth to preach, and he made many disciples, and 
when he died, eighty years old, Buddhism was an 
established rule of life, which in time extended 
over India and beyond, and it is said bore sway 
over a third of the people of the earth. Buddha, 
the illumined one, who saw and knew the truth, 
gave to men a person whom they could admire, 
whose teachings were more definite than they had 



100 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

known, whose spirit and life drew the credence of 
needy hearts. There is a lasting charm in the 
story of this life which has kept it familiar. It 
is not strange that he holds his place among his 
followers as " the chief est among ten thousand." 
In view of all things it is, perhaps, not strange 
that so large a part of the world should call itself 
after his name. What better name had they? 
He could not be shielded from the sight of evil. 
It was at the door of his house and waited beside 
his path. He looked beyond and saw evil and 
misfortune extended in endless returnings. If he 
could break up the clinging to life he would set 
men free. If he could teach men the emptiness 
of all earthly things, and induce them to renounce 
that in which they found delight, their deliver- 
ance would be accomplished. Into what they 
were to escape he did not make clear. Nirvana 
has commonly been regarded as the final end of 
living, though it may not be this. Still, a change 
so complete as it promised would be the end of 
such life as men had known upon the earth. In 
many discourses he taught his doctrine and 
offered his help. He made great account of man, 
differing in this from the teachers whom he dis- 
placed, who made God everything. He set his 
mind on time, when the Braliman aspired to 
eternity. By acts of faith, and obedience, and 



COUEbE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 101 

charity he would bring men into a better estate. 
The result was, again, disappointing. Unques- 
tionably there was truth in Buddhism. But it 
was not itself the truth. It taught virtue, but it 
was patience rather than action, endurance and 
not enterprise, which it commended. It treated 
woman better than other Eastern religions, but it 
did not set her free, in her own place. It could 
not hold its ground in the country in which it 
was first known. It has been clearly pointed 
out that the radical fault of Buddhism was in 
its selfishness. " It rests on pure individualism ; 
each man's object is to save his own soul." It 
was overthrown in India, but it left its influence 
on the country and on the older religions, and 
it found a home in other neighboring lands, 
where its believers have been innumerable and 
its influence immeasurable. But neither in India 
nor elsewhere has it made, or can it make, such a 
country as we wish the world to resemble. Budd- 
hism is sadness. It could not establish men 
in comfort, nor constitute a state. The world 
needed God, the Maker and Father of men, 
and He was not seen there. Men knew nothing 
of his love, of his sympathy and help, and had no 
thought that they could walk with Him, even in 
this world which He had made for them. In 
isolation, egotism, selfishness, there was no escape 



102 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

from their sorrow, and the evil which produced 
it. This is nob reasoning. It is not a homily. 
It is a result. Man's effort to find God and be at 
peace with Him had failed, and he was himself 
the sign of its failure. There was no hope appar- 
ent, unless God should come to men and raise 
them to Himself. Would He do this? Who 
should say ? Buddhism was not in itself a relig- 
ion. It recognized the gods who had been 
known in the land, but it had no worship for 
them. It was willing to worship Buddha, and 
to see in him the sovereign of life. He was 
Intelligence, the Enlightened One, and by many 
such names we may call him. But he was not 
the Light ; a beautiful Star, but not a Sun ; not 
even a planet of the first magnitude, by reason of 
his lack of light. I must conclude these hints, 
happy that no more is needed. Yet I shall bridge 
the way before us with the words of Maurice, 
whose learning and fair dealing all men respect : 
" I ask notliing more than the Hindoo system and 
the Hindoo life as evidence that there is that in 
man which demands a revelation — that there is 
not that in him which makes the revelation." I 
have been interested in the statement in a letter 
just published, from one of the leading advocates 
of Oriental belief, that the principal representative 
in this country of the religious thought of India is 



COUBSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATUEE lOS 

not a Buddhist, and that the Vedanta has been 
taught " as a system of philosophy which might 
underlie Christianity as well as the religion of the 
Hindoos." 

I am not attempting a history, or even a sketch, 
of the religions of the world or any one of them. 
If I were, I should, of course, give a much fuller 
account of Buddhism, which has admirers among 
us, and I should go to other nations. It would be 
of value to study the effect of Buddhism away 
from its home. It is not unlikely that in its 
course it received aid from Christianity. Its 
effects can be traced in Japan, where it helped to 
raise the people from their low estate. But its 
work there reached its bounds. That the Japanese 
have made a great advance upon many lines is 
evident. A few men have felt in good measure 
the outer influence which has appealed to their 
own striving, and wrought with it, and by them 
the nation has been moved forward. But there is 
no content in this. Man has not found his true 
self as the child of God, nor come to the knowl- 
edge of his will, in its grace and truth. The 
nations all bear striking witness to the need of a 
light which is not of men. 

We can form our own judgment. Even with 
the charm, the spell, of Oriental mystery upon us, 
we can be sane. I am quite sure I express 



104 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

the common assurance, based upon knowledge, 
that it is not to India we are to look for the 
world's enlightening and delivering faith. Not to 
India with all her own resources, with the benefits 
of Mohammedanism, even with the influence of 
England, with the presence of the foreigner in 
her seaports, with any natural advance which can 
be discovered, with the teaching of a few Chris- 
tian missionaries, can we look for the faith which 
is to strengthen manhood, liberate and exalt 
woman, promote robust virtue, restore the full 
divinity of life. When we seek life for the 
world, it is not there. If not there, where is it? 

I wish before I turn from these hurried thoughts 
upon religious systems to say a word of respect 
for them, and, if I may, to make them tributary 
to my main design. Nothing which so deeply 
concerns the heart of man, and has a real part in 
his life, can be rudely handled or lightly regarded. 

We must all feel the justice of these words of a 
thoughtful teacher : " Nor do I think any man 
of modesty or thoughtfulness will ever speak 
contemptuously of any religion in which God has 
allowed one good man to die, trusting ; " and fur- 
ther, " You will always measure your neighbor's 
creed kindly, in proportion to the substantial 
points of your own." Let us recognize with 
gratitude the efforts of men in the expression 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITER ATUBE 105 

of the religious sentiment and in the attempt to 
make this of service to the world. There is here 
a truth of the largest significance. It is not the 
result alone, but the attempt itself, which con- 
cerns us. We cannot fail to notice, in the 
theories and professions at least, the insistence 
upon morality, the assertion of the authority of 
the right. The application often offends us, but 
there is a thought, a feeling within, which deserves 
regard. " God is no respecter of persons ; but in 
every nation he that feareth Him and worketh 
righteousness is acceptable to Him." The study 
of the world's religions is becoming popular, and 
with good reason. They have been too long 
neglected and too little esteemed. We should 
be informed regarding each one, and the relations 
between them, and any advance which can be 
found in their thought and influence. 

Whatever else they may be, the religions of the 
world are a revelation of man. They disclose his 
need and his spiritual nature. If they do not 
declare a capacity for intercourse with the Divine 
Being, they do make known his ability to look 
beyond himself and beyond the world, and to find 
principalities and powers filling the spaces which 
enclose the stars. He sees a spirit in nature. If 
he confounds this with the things he looks upon, 
and sends his adoration out into the light, or even 



106 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

makes images to represent it, — images which are 
quite sure at last to detain his thought upon 
themselves, — this is something of account. It is 
much when men believe in that they cannot see, 
and are aware of a life above their own ; differ- 
ent from theirs, but sufficiently like it for com- 
munion, and some community of interest. They 
may admire the forces and authorities about 
them and above them, or only fear them and 
dread their approach. What they do is of less 
consequence than that they should in some way 
think upon them, know that they are there, 
believe that they can be reached with prayers 
and offerings ; that by sacrifices their anger may 
be averted and their favor secured. We may 
call this superstition, but there are worse things 
than superstition. To see gods everywhere is bet- 
ter than to see God nowhere. Superstition is a 
perversion, and its forms are often degraded until 
the truth which is in them is well-nigh beyond 
recognition. But there remains a point, a germ, 
of which something can be made. God has not 
left Himself without witness, nor limited this to 
"rains and fruitful seasons." Whatever has been 
the influence of these religious systems, they offer 
no reason for withholding a fuller revelation ; nay, 
they declare a reason for presenting it, in their 
insufficiency, and in their witness to the ability of 



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COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 107 

men to be religious. Let us recognize the uni- 
versal religious principle in man. When a ship 
is at the pier, you do not know that she will 
move. When a ship is a hundred miles at sea, it 
is safe to infer that she will go farther. 

Roswell Hitchcock truly said : " Even if religion 
were altogether a superetition, it is an inevitable 
and an indispensable superstition." The worship, 
however poor, of nature, or the power or powers 
whose form is nature, whose dwelling is in the 
light of rising and setting suns , — the endowing 
of nature with personal qualities to which men 
can address themselves , — are a witness to the far 
away origin of the mind to which such conceptions 
are possible and natural. It is the stifled cry of 
men upon a raft in mid-ocean, when the ship 
has gone down and no land rises from the many 
billowed waters, and there is no bread on the un- 
planted sea. It may be dreadfully low, this super- 
stition of the world. If there was " no gentleman 
on Olympus," what can be said of the Pantheon 
of savagery ? The likeness of the gods to those 
who made them is too sad for anything but pity, 
unless it be hope. We are upon the lowest plane. 
There are better things farther up. There are 
noble thoughts, beautiful sentiments, worthy aspi- 
rations, brave attempts at a truer and happier life. 
What revelations the Father of all men has made 



108 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

as the centuries have rolled on, we may not be 
able to tell. He has not separated Himself from 
the world, nor lightly regarded any one's need. 
There is a true light " which lighteth every man 
that Cometh into the world ; " a saying as simple 
and natural as it is rich in promise, and worthy 
of the place in which it is recorded. The appeal 
is not to credulous charity and amiable desire, 
but to a broad reason, a discerning vision, and 
to our faith in God, the maker of the heaven 
and the earth, and the man. In the study 
of our fellow-men, it is required of us that 
we make the most and the best of all that 
we discover. It is not strange that when we 
wander beyond the domain which we have in- 
herited we find little which pleases, and nothing 
which contents us. The sad, unmistakable fact is 
this, that the religions, and forms of religion, upon 
which we are lingering for a moment are not good, 
even for those who have nothing else. They do 
not give them the light and life which every man 
must need ; they do not meet the wants of those 
who cling to them, nor do they promise ever to do 
this. There is too little truth, and too much 
error ; too little which strengthens, and too much 
which enervates ; too little from above, and too 
much from the earth. We may regard it as 
proven, that no religion made by men can do for 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 109 

men that which must be done. Let us not 
blame men for not doing what is beyond their 
power. Let us, rather, look up to the hills 
from whence came life in the beginning. If 
God is our Father, as we say, He will speak to 
us. " Adam, where art thou ? " when we hear it, 
summons us to God. I do not see why we may 
not take life at first hand. God is more easily 
reached than men ; and there is satisfaction when 
one is learning from Him. 

Think what it is which needs to be effected. 
It is the renewing of a man's life; of his 
conduct, but more than that — of the stream of 
life upon which conduct is borne. Life itself 
must be made pure, godlike, as it was when 
it came with the breath of the Eternal, with 
the being of the man. A change so deep 
and thorough and essential can only be 
wrought by Him who first created man. I am 
carrying Virchow's words farther than he in- 
tended, but the analogy is close, and analogy in 
this is not far from argument. Life can come 
only from life, he said. The life of the soul, the 
spirit, can come only from the liying and eternal 
Spirit. Here the religions of the world fail. 
They lack the creative power. Something of 
truth, of virtue, of spirit, they may have. But 
not the divine, spiritual vitality, cleansing and 



110 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

quickening the thoughts and desires of the soul. 
The facts are before us. Efforts at reform are 
made, notably in India, and by men who are in 
earnest, and who have apparently rays from the 
Light of the world, if I may change the figure. But 
they do not bring their own life or the nation's 
life to the new Life itself, the Life which is fully 
the light of men. Religion should be simple, 
dignified, exalted, evoking the homage which it 
fosters and rewards. It should promote human 
life, sanctify the home, enlarge virtue, quicken 
ambition, promote enterprise, secure knowledge, 
make the man more and more conscious of himself, 
and awake to his divine lineage. Little of this do 
you find where men have been left to themselves. 
Is there a better test of a religion than the place it 
gives to woman? Doubtless there are pleasant 
homes, sacred loves, happy mothers and children, 
where men have wrought out their own faith. 
Find as many as you can. Unless our standards 
are local and inadequate, such things are very far 
from the rule. Those who have looked longest 
and most carefully bring the report of little glad- 
ness and hope, little liberty and promise ; much 
of sadness turning to despair. I need not here 
call to mind the Pundita Ramabai whose pitiful 
tale of her countrywomen has been forgotten by 
no one who heard it a few montlis ago. She gave 



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COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 111 

but a glimpse of her India, but it was a native 
woman's look, and from it came a sister's plea. 
Only a little of India she disclosed, only pieces of 
real life. Many remember the prayer of the 
child-widow which she repeated: "O Father of 
the world, hast Thou not created us ? Or has 
perchance some other god made us ? Dost Thou 
only care for men ? O Almighty One, hast Thou 
not power to make us other than we are, that we 
too may have some part in the blessings of life?" 
I believe there is still an association in Boston 
which sends New England pity and money for the 
succor of imprisoned lives in India. Ramabai 
was seen only a little time ago in the white, 
graceful dress of her country, with her face 
radiant with thankfulness, and the inspiration of 
truth and light covering her. Her tender, elo- 
quent voice was heard in Channing Hall, begging 
with resistless confidence for a " Faith, Hope, and 
Love Home " for the women and girls of India. 
Must it be proved that the misery she asks us to 
relieve is the result of the religion of the land ? I 
but remind you that the religion of the land has 
allowed it, and has not removed it, and does not 
expect to remove it. Shall I say, does not know 
how to remove it? 

To study the world's religions one by one, and 
with comparison, is of little more than historic 



112 COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

use, unless we can discover some principle which 
pervades them and consents to the varying forms 
in which it is embodied. The forms are not acci- 
dental, but come readily into the character and 
condition of different peoples. If there should be 
found a common principle in them, this would not 
be accidental, but must arise from a common 
source. I do not think the one principle is hard 
to find, or to comprehend. It is the recognition 
of powers beyond men, invisible but real, with 
which men are in actual personal relation. This 
belongs in human nature, and can be traced to 
the origin of the human nature in the divine 
nature from which the life of man proceeds. 
With the fact of creation by one Creator out 
of his own life, beside which there is no other, 
comes as a simple consequence the consciousness 
of that life, and the feeling toward its origin. 
Kept in life by One who gave him his being, what 
is more likely than that man will feel the presence 
which surrounds him — a presence uninterrupted 
since the beginning ? 

The unity of feeling is of vaster moment than 
the divei-sity in which it finds expression. The 
thinking of the world has not been clear or con- 
stant. Behind gods often may be discerned one 
supreme presence, and through forms grotesque 
may be dimly detected a thought better than 



COURSE OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE IIS 

its images. Fetichism has been described as " a 
superstitious veneration for rubbish." Whence 
does the veneration come ? Even if it be utterly 
useless, and sometimes much worse, what is 
its meaning? Is it all the degradation of a 
better thought ? Or is it the blind, very blind, 
long blind, and blinded instinct of the soul 
which perforce sees a somewhat past itself? It 
sees it so very dimly, and expresses its feeling so 
rudely, that it does not hesitate to wreak its dis- 
appointment upon the image before which, when 
things go well, it is ready to pay homage. Still, 
a feeling is there which witnesses to somewhat 
outside of the body. 

Some may remember a visit made to us 
not many years ago by the Zuni Indians. We 
heard their long stories, translated by their white 
brother. Gushing, who had learned many things 
of them. But what was of the highest interest 
was a sail down the harbor, that they might 
worship. We landed on an island, and were 
full of curiosity. The Indians disappeared for a 
time, and on their return they walked into the 
sea, and then with a solemnity I have never seen 
surpassed, under the open sky, careless of all 
around them, they sang their mystic chant, and 
threw out upon the air from their uplifted 
hands the grain they offered to the god of the 



114 CO ^E-S^ OF MAN IN OLDEST LITERATURE 

waters, and let it float away whithersoever he 
would, for it was his, and he had taken it. That 
was worship. I do not know by what name they ' 
called their divinity. We call Him God. 

If we pass to higher forms of religion, we see 
men turning to the heavens from which come the 
names of the divinities, and the figure of their 
quality. There is a beauty in a faith like this, 
which associates with the sun and the dawn, with 
fire and light, the powers to which reverence and 
prayer are due. The divinity is above, out of 
reach, never fashioned by the hands of men, re- 
maining for ages, and boundless in its riches. Or 
there may be a larger view which includes the 
partial visions, and thus stands nearer to the 
truth. Different divinities may stand for one 
God. This was at times the thought of the 
Brahman ; but it did not prevent caste, nor with- 
hold its sanction from vice. Against this Buddh- 
ism rebelled, with its insistence upon morality 
and humanity. But all this, and all which we 
name paganism, cannot dishearten me so much as 
the poor, broken thought of unseen spiritual forces 
gives encouragement. It is sad that a man should 
bow before his idol : it were worse if he did not 
bow at all. You can take away the idol, and 
leave him kneeling, and that is a good posture in 
which to see God and worsliip Him. 



Ill 

THE SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 



THE SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITER- 
ATURE 



This is 1898. The fixed point "in the files 
of time " from which the years are reckoned was 
found in a small and remote province of the 
empire, and in the night when, in the house- 
hold of a village carpenter, far from his home, a 
child was born. Strange things are told of this 
by men who were near when it occurred. A 
writer of scientific pretension, then a well-known 
physician, has related that on that night, while 
shepherds were watching their flocks, an angel 
bright with celestial glory appeared, and told 
what had happened in the town beside their field ; 
and that presently a heavenly host was heard 
singing into the silence the Gloria in Excelsis. 
This was certainly remarkable, and the narrative 
separates itself from common legends, not only 
by the fact that it was written by that man and 
at that time, but by its position in a biography 
whose events are presented in prosaic simplicity 
and directness, to the intent, as the author states, 



118 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

that the friend to whom he was writing might 
know the certainty concerning the things wherein 
he had been instructed. The whole memoir is an 
excellent piece of literature, and the beautiful 
beginning will keep its place in the hearts that 
are young. Let us hope that we may never be 
old. 

I do not see anything in the account of that 
night in the fields of Bethlehem more astonishing 
than the very commonplace circumstance that our 
morning newspaper, on its own showing, went to 
press eighteen hundred and ninety-eight years 
after the birth of that child. Reference to that 
event was made in the same terms this morning 
in London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, 
and in every place which has a daily paper. This 
is not all. For every constitution which shall be 
adopted through the year, every treaty which 
shall be formed, every ordinance which shall be 
issued, every bill of sale that is written, every 
compact for a game of ball, every letter of the 
school-girl, will carry those four figures which 
define its place and measure its distance from 
that child's birth, of which, outside a few peas- 
ants, the world was unaware, and to which it 
would long be indifferent. Herod the king 
heard of it and Avas troubled. Wise men 
came from the East to worship the new king. 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 119 

The world was to know Him, and to take that 
night into its life, and to arrange its affairs 
around it. Here is something to be thought 
upon. Learning, intelligence, must make account 
of the fact which is so firmly and generally 
established that it passes without observation. I 
have sometimes said that every candidate for a 
college degree should be required to give a 
scholarly statement of all the causes which have 
worked together to produce the date upon the 
diploma which he seeks, and of the events which 
have immediately attended the bringing in of 
this result. I am inclined to think that, for the 
first degree at least, this requirement, given in 
the largest way, would be sufficient. A hasty 
answer, an ill-considered explanation, could be 
easily given. But scholars are held to accuracy 
and completeness. This demand would call for 
knowledge of history; of discovery and the 
making of nations ; of the change in boundaries 
and governments ; of political and military 
affairs ; of science and its annals ; of philosophy 
and its records ; of art and its influence ; of educa- 
tion and its methods ; of language and its exten- 
sion ; of men and their careers which have been 
set into the movement of the world ; of philan- 
thropy and reform ; of morals and religion ; of 
missions and their results ; of the Church and the 



120 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

churches. Every department of the University 
Library would be laid under tribute, and proposals 
to shorten the years of study would be delayed. 
After all this, the real explanation might not be 
discovered. 

It is evident that I cannot answer the inquiry 
which I have started. Nor can I trace the steps 
by which our chronology has been established. 
The fixed point is an intrusion, but one that has 
justified itself. The whole matter of the calendar 
is both interesting and curious. There are cer- 
tain natural divisions of time, made by the change 
of day and night, the course of the moon, and 
arrangement of the seasons. Yet there were diffi- 
culties enough on every side, while the great 
thing was to find a starting-point. Each nation 
could easily select one for ibself, but this was too 
provincial to last ; and to find a day for two 
nations, or three, was not easy. 

It would seem well-nigh impossible to find any 
man of whose life any one day could be agreed 
upon by the people of other nations whose own 
heroes were thus openly passed by. Imagine 
such an attempt to be made now ! Yet that was 
done. The Hebrew counted the years from the 
beginning of the world, a convenient place, to 
which no one could object on the ground of sec- 
tarianism, if the time could be discovered, which 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 121 

seems more difficult now than it was then. The 
Roman counted from the founding of Rome, 
which was a natural assertion of his national 
importance. The Greek was of a different temper 
and began with the Olympic games, or with that 
one in which Coroebus gained the first recorded 
victory, which was a little earlier than the start- 
ing-point of the Romans. There are various Ori- 
ental methods of arranging the years, as from 
the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, 
or the accession of Yezdegird, or the Council of 
Tiben. These we need not consider. Nor need 
we linger upon smaller calendars which were 
based on various local events. To the system 
of his country, wherever that might be, the 
Christian conformed. It was his way, and he was 
not so presumptuous as to think that the events 
which were most significant in his thought would 
work a change so stupendous in the affairs of the 
world as to displace tlie systems of time by which 
they were arranged. It was certainly not to be 
expected that the Roman government, under 
whose decree Christ had been crucified, would 
place him at the beginning of its history. It was 
long in doing this, but it was done at last. It 
seems to have come about in this way : The 
Emperor Justinian had directed that all public 
documents should be dated by the year of the 



122 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

emperor and the name of the consul ; but in our 
year 541 he gave up the practice of nominating 
consuls, and it became necessary to fix upon some 
new point from which time could be measured. 
The Justinian code of Civil Law, which had just 
been published, made it, perhaps, seem more impor- 
tant that the matter of dates, with which the laws 
would have much to do, should be adjusted in a 
rational and permanent way. Since the Roman 
law was to be so widely extended, and furnish 
principles of jurisprudence for many countries 
and many centuries, it was fitting that the initial 
point of the new chronology should be of uni- 
versal value. I do not know that all this was 
thought of, but it might well have been regarded. 
The fact that such a point was found and adopted 
shows that in their action the Romans were wiser 
than they knew. Now it happened — if we may 
use such a term for a course of events worthy 
of wiser direction — it happened that a Roman 
abbot, who bore the not unusual name of Diony- 
sius, but was distinguished by the epithet 
Exiguus, probably because he was small of stature, 
had begun in his tables for Easter to count the 
years from the birth of Christ. Among them- 
selves Christians had before reckoned from their 
Lord, but from his crucifixion; now the Incar- 
nation, as it was regarded, was to make the begin- 



SON OF MAN IN EAELT LITERATURE 123 

ning of a new era. This Dionysius was a man of 
high standing ; a Scythian, but renowned in the 
Latin church for his great learning, which 
appeared in his collection of ecclesiastical laws, 
of canons and decretals. But his larger work 
and extended fame were in this simpler matter 
of the calendar, in which his thought was to have 
a far wider and larger range than any one on earth 
could have imagined. He could not tell with 
precision the time when Christ was born, and in 
his computation there is an error of four or five 
yeai-s. That is of no importance here, although 
it would need to be taken into account in the 
College examination. But the idea of the abbot 
was at once popular. The time had come for it. 
It met a want, and under conditions which com- 
mended it. That was in the sixth century, as 
we now count. The idea kept its place and grew 
in favor. It was taken into the learning of Bede, 
or Beda, and advanced with it. Charlemagne gave 
his influence to its extension, and by the eighth 
century it was very widely in use, and was still 
advancing, until it has become established as the 
fixed point of the world's chronology. I do not 
mean that there was any tiling mysterious in this, 
but that it was very remarkable ; an impressive 
fact of which account should be made. Such 
facts are of consequence as expressing truths and 



124 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

tendencies in clear and compact form. This was 
of that nature. The prominence to which Chris- 
tianity had attained, and the recognition which it 
had acquired in the empire, prepared the way for 
this act of homage. 

Of course the date has moved with events. 
But how did it get among the events, and belong 
with them? It moved with law, language, 
custom, and it remained when these had been 
driven back. It stayed wherever it went. Other 
things changed, but this was as fixed as the course 
of the planets. We do not need to trace it in 
scattered syllables and obscure usages ; it stands 
in its own right, and is conspicuous in its dignity 
and authority. In its universal use it is the per- 
petual memorial of Him whose birthday it records. 
No man can date a letter, and think what he is 
doing, without bringing Christ before his mind. 
What other fact, in the entire history of the world, 
is constantly mentioned, and kept in connection 
with the life of men throughout its whole extent, 
from centre to circumference ; in politics, science, 
business, religion ; in the birth of the child, the 
movement of the man, the government of the 
nation ? Shall we ask the reason for this ? I do 
not wish to force the evident truth beyond that 
which is just. But when I regard it as I would 
any fact of nature, any other fact of history, I 



y 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 125 

cannot avoid the belief, which to me is most 
grateful, that herein is a divine thought, and that 
this is one sign of the divine purpose, one witness 
to the mission of Him who was born at Bethlehem, 
one promise that his work is to be worldwide and 
enduring. 

We have here the life in which the recovery of 
man is to be fulfilled. The world has decidedly 
and permanently made recognition of its opening 
day. It is a singular fact, to be carefully regarded. 
My present proposition is this : As the Creator 
gave to man of his own life in the beginning, and 
that life has lost its virtue while in man's pos- 
session, the Creator has again, in these last times, 
and by a man, given his life to the Avorld. 

We have lingered at the birth of the new man. 
We are to move on for thirty years and mark his 
life. Let us remember the simplicity of the event 
from which we start, and the glory connected 
with it. Its light is shining upon our path all 
the day. The record of the life is in books held 
in reverence in many lands. Special divine illu- 
mination and guidance have been claimed for their 
writers ; and in the minds of wise men the claim 
has been well sustained. Such assistance could 
readily be given. But the books have their own 
claims upon our attention and confidence. They 
offer unusual advantages for the study now before 



126 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

US, in that they contain four separate biographies 
of Him whose birthday we all regard. There is 
no parallel for this. There are these sufficiently 
complete narratives, written independently, after, 
but not too long after, the life which they present. 
They were written under different conditions, for 
different immediate purposes, and with consider- 
able intervals. It is not exaggeration to say that 
no one living in that time, or within many cen- 
turies of it, can be so well known as He whom we 
have to know if we are to be well informed. Not 
only the incidents of his career, but his spirit, 
his intentions, his methods, his character and 
assertions, his deep thoughts and purposes, are 
placed before us, in many lights, with varied 
illustrations, with many repetitions, with an 
honesty and simplicity which are nowhere ex- 
celled. If it is possible for scholarship to deter- 
mine the importance of any ancient literature, 
then it has been done in this instance. No effort 
has been spared, no test has been denied, no re- 
search hindered. Reverence and irreverence, the 
desire to believe and the readiness to doubt, have 
done their earnest work here. It is a rare tribute 
to the worth of these biographies that they have 
been able to draw to themselves the attention of 
such men as have been enlisted in their study. 
Think when they were made, to what writers 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 127 

they were assigned, in what land they had their 
origin, to what subjects they relate, and see that 
here again is testimony to the value and the in- 
tegrity of these books. We have no autograph 
manuscripts, and fortunately none which claim 
such distinction. But we come near to them, 
and may come closer. There are tales now and 
then of antique fragments found in convents 
and other ruins. But as it is, we come near to 
men who saw Christ. I do not wish to claim too 
much, and I am quite ready to accept the conclu- 
sions of sincere, painstaking study on all literary 
questions. The conclusions should be in all 
respects scholarly ; thorough and thoroughly fair, 
and in the interest of truth alone. But we may 
well despair of knowledge of the early days if, 
after all that has been done, these simple treatises 
are not to be confidently regarded as the trust- 
worthy record of the events in which they claim 
to have had their origin. I do not care to insist 
that at every point and in every word they are 
rigidly exact, but that they are true, as we use 
that term, and give the truth in simple forms. 
Their contents might well make us unusually 
careful, but they should not alter our canoiis of 
study, nor invalidate the processes of our reason, 
nor make us unreasonable in our demands. We 
may allow for difference of conclusion upon 



128 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

special questions. But when all has been said, 
the conclusions of scholarly thought find in these 
pages the true presentment of the life of Him who 
moves in them. 

I speak of these writings as literature. That 
the books have special qualities, which raise 
them above other books, I firmly believe. But 
I do not wish to contend for all which person- 
ally I hold to be true and proven. For my 
purpose it seems best to regard them as the writ- 
ings of men honest and intelligent, and to read 
them with the same openness and readiness of 
mind which we should give to them if they were 
not concerned with such things as fill their pages. 
In referring to these writings I have used the 
convenient term " biographies." This is not en- 
tirely correct. In the best sense they are not 
biographies, with a definite beginning, and a clear 
and connected account of events, with names and 
dates, and all the framework of a life. They are 
such writings as you would expect from un- 
lettered, intelligent, honest men. There is no 
sign of art, no pretence to literary skill, no ob- 
truding of the authors. Each writer presents the 
statement of that which he knew, and thought it 
necessary to preserve and circulate, concerning 
One who had claimed and received his homage. 
This is fine, this personal interest and freedom, in 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 129 

which four men prepared four accounts of the one 
life. Neither wrote a complete memoir, but each 
did better in describing the life itself ; the spirit 
and purpose which were in more deeds than have 
been recorded. They wrote from their personal 
recollection, from common memories of words and 
deeds constantly recalled, perhaps in some portions 
from separate records of special events. Their 
design was to tell as clearly as they could the 
truths which had become a part of their life, and 
concerning which error was unreasonable. They 
did not shut out the light wliich according to 
the promise had come to them. They may 
have learned new words, but they had also learned 
how to employ words not new. Thus it is said 
that one of the writers borrowed the term Logos, 
which he applied to the Master. He was at 
liberty to do this, if he found the word con- 
venient. The natural question is, not what the 
word meant where he found it, but what use he 
made of it in describing the Hfe of One who was 
the subject of his writing. Read it in its place, 
as you hear an instrument in an orchestra. 

It is a life which is given to us. We find it 
moving quietly, steadily forward, not more inter- 
rupted by lines between events than is the course 
of a ship by the meridians it crosses. We feel 
its presence. We are conscious of an idea, an 



130 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATUBE 

intent, possessing the years, and going constantly 
on to fulfil itself. Incidents attract and interest 
us, but it is the life and the purpose incarnate 
in it which take the strongest hold upon our 
thought, upon our admiration and confidence. 
Yet the forms in which the thought was embodied 
are of great value. We feel the spirit ; but the 
spirit must be manifested in order to be known. 

But these records do not stand by themselves. 
They can be read alone, with nothing before and 
nothing after them. Even thus they would be 
instructive beyond all other literature. But no 
one can read them intelligently without perceiv- 
ing that they are the extension of writings which 
were before them. Not to read the entire litera- 
ture is as if we should study the Puritans without 
regard to the English history in which they come 
to light and do their first work. Of all the lives 
that have been lived, the life of Christ can least 
afford to be studied in sections, which are re- 
garded as complete. I think that everything 
which bears the name of heresy rests upon pieces 
of truth, and not upon truth in its wholeness 
and variety. 

We are chiefly concerned with the modern 
Testament, properly called New, the New 
Covenant. All along the way this turns us 
back to the earlier stages of the thought. The 



y 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 131 

Master was constantly referring to the Hebrew 
Scriptures, and showing the vital connection of 
his life with that which had been written. He 
could do this, for with the exception of names 
and dates, the story of his life can be read in 
the Old Testament almost as well as in the 
New. His biography was given in advance, even 
as He said, and his purpose was to complete it. 
Biography usually follows the life : his also pre- 
ceded. The tables of his genealogy present an 
unbroken line, reaching into the earliest days. 
There is no instance in which this vital connec- 
tion with the past is more marked than when at 
the close, at the time when He wished to give to 
his friends a clearer conception of Himself, and 
of the work which seemed to be terminated by 
his death, which had surprised them with its dis- 
appointment and startled their faith, He turned 
their minds back to Moses and the Hebrew proph- 
ets and the Psalms, that they might see that all 
which had happened to Him had been anticipated 
and intended, and had been carefully written 
down long beforehand. We comfort the friends 
whom we are leaving with the future. So did 
He, indeed ; but He encouraged them also with 
the past, and there He established their knowl- 
edge and faith. He appealed to history to con- 
vince them of Himself. He took their ancestral 



132 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

hope and gave it back to them alive. To bind 
together the Old Testament and the New Testa- 
ment is one of the best things which bookmakers 
have ever done. They made a blunder when 
they put blank leaves between them. However 
convenient these may be for a family record, the 
story of our family life, there is danger that they 
will interrupt our thought of the one life which 
it most concerns us to know. 

In the same way it is necessary that we read 
forward beyond the memoirs, if we are to under- 
stand them. What He had taught was treasured 
in the minds of men who became the teachers 
of others. Their teaching became another biog- 
raphy, if I may retain that word. They did not 
invent or discover truth ; they repeated it, as 
they were called to do. One wrote in this way : 
" That which was from the beginning, which we 
have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, 
which we have looked upon, and our hands 
have handled of the Word of Life. That 
which we have seen and heard, declare we unto 
you, that ye also may have fellowship with us." 
The teaching of another, often thought of as 
a leader among the disciples, was in like manner 
the telling of the things which he had seen 
and heard. In the second letter which bears 
his name he asserts his authority to declare the 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 133 

power and coming of the Lord : " We have not 
followed cunningly devised fables, but were eye- 
witnesses of his majesty.*' Here is the memoir, 
declared in the lives of men who knew it, who 
knew it so thoroughly and believed in it so 
utterly that it made their life, and commonly 
their death. The men and the word agree. 

The Gospel, as we have come to call it, is 
not a matter of manuscripts alone, priceless and 
satisfying as they are. It is a matter of life, 
active, intense, devoted, at once a passion and 
a faith. Then, the career of the first apostles 
was written out by one who was with them. 
It is not a history : it is a series of annals, 
the simple narrative of important events. It is 
the common belief that this man had written one 
of the accounts of Christ's life, and his warrant 
for this was in the fact that he "had perfect 
understanding of all things from the very first." 
But the Book of the Acts of the Apostles is the 
extension of the memoir of Christ. It is the 
story of men who had learned of Him, and were 
now, in fulfilment of his instructions, teaching the 
world. It is a declaration of the facts which were 
afterward written in the Gospels, and were then 
held in the devoted memories of men who had 
given their life to the work of teaching them. 
But there is more than this, for a man comes 



134 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

forward who is to be chief in the new work 
for the world. He had been slow to believe 
the new teacliing. He saw the peril of the 
old Church, in which survived all the liberty 
which his people retained. He resisted stoutly 
all the advances of the Christian faith. He 
persecuted with extreme severity those who 
belonged to it. At length this was all changed. 
It is said that every man goes, at some time 
in his life, to Damascus — the place of the last 
decision. Mahomet looked on its delights and 
sought another paradise. This man fell blinded 
at its gate and in the darkness found the eternal 
light ; and found himself. He was drawn to the 
cause he opposed, and became its foremost friend 
and apostle. The story is told more than once. 
But besides all that was written, there is the man, 
a force in the world, a person for history, with 
a life which compels attention. He was taught 
the word and work of Christ, and he became him- 
self the teacher of this truth. Opinions were 
exchanged for verities, and the verities put in 
command of life. We have his letters, practical 
letters of instruction, encouragement, reproof, the 
expression of his great heart, informed by his great 
purpose. He was stoned and imprisoned, but he 
never faltered in his understanding of Christ and 
his words and his life, nor hesitated to tell all that 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 135 

he knew, and he held himself ready to die in this 
faith, even as it was appointed unto him to do. 
Beaten three times, stoned once, thrice ship- 
wrecked, a night and a day in the deep, pursued, 
tormented, he kept to the faith he found at 
Damascus, proving it in all its promises, and set- 
ting his influence deeply into the life of the world. 
Few men, I do not know that any men, have con- 
trolled the world's religious thought more than he. 
His memoir is in the New Testament. But it is 
also written with the thinking of the centuries. 

Here again is the story of Christ's life, writ- 
ten and unwritten, embodied in the biography of 
a man, and in the churches which he founded; 
made a part of the history of the world ; the lit- 
erary, political, religious history of the world. We 
have the life of Christ when we have the life of 
Paul, and his addresses and epistles ; and the life is 
the same that is described by the men who saw it. 

This man, strong in his character, mighty in 
his deeds, stands as the permanent witness to 
the truth to which he gave his life. He was a 
teacher of religion. Nevertheless, he must be 
understood by every one who would have a clear 
knowledge of the course of events in the world. 
Paul must be recognized. But every thought 
of him is a thought of One concerning whom he 
said, " I do not live ; but He liveth in me." 



136 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

But the life of Christ does not stop here. The 
pervasive principle which marked it was its con- 
tinuance. It promised to remain with men, to 
become a part of their life, blending with their 
thoughts, guiding their conduct; strengthening, 
inspiring, comforting, without limitation of time. 
Its influence was of that kind which could be put 
to the proof, whether Christ was seen or not. I 
wish to call attention to a fact of the greatest 
significance. The religion taught by Christ we 
call Christianity. If Christianity was ever true, 
it is true to-day. It can be seen at work now, 
and studied with all care, and without the 
charming distraction of the Master's presence. 
He claimed the future. He sent forward his 
influence. The end of the world, of which 
He taught, meant both time and place. This 
forward looking was one of the most marked 
things in all his teaching. '' I am with you to the 
end of the world," He said. More than that. He 
commissioned men to go into all the world and 
offer to every man what He had offered in the 
three years He spent in Palestine. This was 
begun while his disciples lived, and has been 
going on ever since ; is going on to-day here and 
in every land, on almost every island and patch 
of coral in the seas. Yet if we could gather up 
the teaching of these messengers it would be 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 137 

found in its essential truths to be the same which 
is recorded in the New Testament. Indeed, we 
do gather it up ; we know what they teach ; and it 
is what they like to call '' the old, old story." It 
has expressed itself in many tongues and with 
many forms, but the underlying truths have been 
the same. 

We can find in their words the account of 
Christ's life ; and more than that, the continuance 
of his life. We can trace the effect of listening to 
Him, believing in Him, following his instruction. 
A multitude which cannot be numbered, compris- 
ing men distinguished for learning, prudence, 
carefulness, moderation ; for skill in affairs ; for 
generalship and statesmanship ; for high thoughts 
and great achievements ; with many of less rank, of 
plain minds and common lives, give their witness 
to Him. 

There is more than the evidence given in the 
lives of men. The story of Christ has self-evidenc- 
ing power. It gains the approval of the reason and 
the heart. Men feel that it is true. Paul was 
able to appeal to this and write that by mani- 
festation of the truth he commended himself to 
every man's conscience, when the conscience was 
in the presence of God. I have no doubt that 
there were persons in Corinth who smiled as 
they heard this daring appeal. But the saints in 



138 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

Achaia knew that he was right. The knowledge 
of one man is of more authority than the ignorance 
of several men. 

Nothing that we know is more beautiful than 
this assurance. Men learn to speak of Christ as 
a present friend. It does not occur to them to 
doubt his word. They are simple as children. 
When one remarked on David Livingstone's lone- 
liness in Africa, he answered that he was not 
alone. " Christ said that he would be with me 
always. It is the word of a gentleman of the 
strictest honor, and there's an end of it." When 
he fell upon his knees in an African hut, and 
threw his arms forward on the couch and rested 
his head upon them, he believed that the promise 
was kept. The candle burned low at his side, and 
his heart ceased to beat, but he knew that he was 
not alone. His weary body lies under the pave- 
ment in Westminster Abbey. He won the place. 
There is no truer shrine among the monuments. 
Why should he not be believed when he speaks 
of that which he knew best and cared for most ? 
Unbelief may go a long way and be respected; 
but there is a limit which it has no right to pass. 

I may add that in institutions Christianity has 
preserved the record of itself. The societies, 
formed in the name of Christ and around his 
teaching and Himself, are called churches. I do 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 139 

not mention this as information, but because it is 
sometimes fancied that there is something myste- 
rious about a church. It is a society of men and 
women, with its own purpose and endowment, 
and is as good as the men and women who com- 
pose it. It has the highest sanction, and quite as 
much authority as would be for its advantage. 
The churches made the New Testament, as a 
book or a collection of books, containing truths 
which they knew, and they have preserved it. 
Their strength to a great extent has been in their 
adherence to the historical documents of the faith. 
When their regard for these lessens, there is real 
and evident danger that teaching will become 
mystical and sentimental, and decrees oppressive. 
It is an obvious safeguard to faith and practice, 
that every man can read the charter for himself 
and protect his own liberty. Of this independence 
there is no serious lack in this neighborhood. 
We might have learned the words of Cln?ist 
from a society which transmitted them without 
writing. But we are more confident that the 
words are correctly given to us when we have 
also the ancient records. 

The churches have also taken special events in 
the history of Cln-ist and embodied them in forms 
which have preserved them. Thus the churches 
are an early Avitness to the Resurrection of Christ. 



140 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

His Resurrection is the vital fact, without which 
there would have been no churches, and the assur- 
ance of this fact has not grown less. They have 
Baptism, by which from the first his friends have 
been marked as his own. Each instance of this 
Baptism points back to the earliest. They have the 
Eucharist, which could never have been devised 
by men, which has gone everywhere with his name, 
which his friends keep in remembrance of Him ; 
and this reaches in unbroken succession to his own 
guest chamber in Jerusalem. Here are great truths, 
which live by their own force, which are imbedded 
in the cause of civilization, which owe nothing to 
history, or to the act of man, save for transmis- 
sion, and which are only explained by seeing them 
in their origin. If we question concerning them, 
we get a variety of explanations ; but we always 
get this, that they are the things to which Christ 
gave being, and which He committed to his 
friends, that they might give them to the world. 
The churches themselves in their existence and 
their meaning, even in their divine claims, are a 
witness to Him and to his life ; and whatever of 
usage they have added, they have held Him 
supreme, and have preserved the knowledge of 
his word and work. 

I wish to call attention again to the surpassing 
amount of the knowledge of Jesus Christ which 



y 



SON OF MAN IN EAltLY LITERATURE 141 

is in our hands. Whose life is prolonged as his has 
been, and shown in so many ways? We have 
incidents, addresses, conversations, meditations, 
and prayers ; questions and answers ; revelations 
of the heart, of emotions, purposes, desires. 
More than this, let me repeat that we have the 
words of Christ embodied in the lives of men, 
and in their institutions ; put to all conceivable 
test in the heart and the home ; in the closet and 
on the house-top. We can see Christianity in 
action. The testing is severe. If it cannot 
make itself known and approved in this way, 
there is small encouragement in resorting to any 
other. But who besides Christ has made men of 
many centuries live around his teaching, more 
than content to have it the soul and passion of 
their years ? I tliink that no one has ever lived, 
even of the men of our own time, of whom we 
can have this interior knowledge, till not even the 
beating of the heart is concealed from us. 

Think again who He was at his birth and what 
the chances were that He would ever be known 
beyond the neighborhood of Nazareth, and say if 
there be not in this unexampled, unapproached 
career a purpose which intelligence must appre- 
hend. 

Thus far, for the most part, we have gone about 
the life of Christ. Let me ask you now to look 



142 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

Avithin it, to the end that we may know Him more 
fully and accurately. The times were ready for 
his coming. The world was at peace. The 
nations which were consolidated into the empire 
offered a fine opportunity to Him and to the work 
which He was to do. Men were tired of the 
religions which were unequal to the demands 
fairly made upon them. The religion of Judea 
had reached the point where it could pass into 
larger truth. The period has been well named 
"The fulness of time." 

The place was suitable. Palestine was small 
and of slight influence. While central among 
the nations, it was isolated by its position, and by 
the traditions and the temper of its people. But 
noted cities had been upon its coast, and there 
men famous in commerce and the arts had their 
homes. It had been rich in strong men and great 
events. The land even now illustrates the New 
Testament, in mountains and seas, in customs 
and habits, in food and di'ess, in ploughs and 
boats, in the events of nature. It had felt the in- 
fluence of other countries, at whose hands it had 
suffered, whose armies had traversed its roads on 
their way to conquest and defeat. It knew the 
world, for the world had touched it on every side. 
It was a persistent, stubborn country, which could 
be cast down, but not destroyed. Its people could 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITEBATUBE 143 

be killed, but not conquered. It considered its 
own history religious and looked proudly through 
its misfortunes to its glory. Its religion kept it 
apart from its neighbors. It worshipped one God, 
who shared his authority with no divinities, to 
whom no image could be erected, whose altar no 
graving tools could touch, whose statutes remain 
until this day the expression of the duty of man. 
It had a grand array of prophets, men who stood 
for Jehovah. Its Scriptures are our own religious 
books, which is a testimony to their universal 
character. We sing their songs, and find no better 
words of praise ; we treasure the comfort in their 
promises, and breathe out our penitence in their 
Miserere. No other land could have given such 
words, over which the centuries have no power. 
Think for a moment what advantage the literature 
of Greece and Rome had over that of Palestine ! 
In their character, in the position of their people, 
in the men who were interested in them, the 
books of either land stood a thousand times the 
chance of being the chief books in Britain, Ger- 
many, America. We do indeed read and admire 
the literature we call classic, and shall continue to 
do so, yet only the few know anything of it. The 
one book of poor, isolated Palestine is the book 
of the civilized world, the book of church and 
home and college and school. How this came 



144 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

about is a question of interest to scholars. It has 
even been said, perhaps not with strict accuracy, 
that if the Bible should be lost, it could be recon- 
structed out of the other books into which by 
portions it has been copied. One thing is certain, 
a few pages in the second part have carried all 
the rest into the history and experience of the 
world. It is to be noted that whatever estimate 
we may put upon the New Testament, the princi- 
ples of our religion, the great truths which we 
cherish, are from Palestine. All this has come to 
us, not because of Moses and the Prophets, of 
David and the other Psalmists, but by reason of 
that Child whose birth Ave register every day. 
He explains history, and history in its turn and 
in its measure explains Him. 

It was the breaking of a long silence when 
there appeared in the wilderness of Judea a man 
clothed in camel's hair bound about him by a 
leathern girdle ; who called men to repentance, 
declaring that the kingdom of heaven was at 
hand, and that One was coming, the latchet of 
whose shoes he should not be worthy to unloose ; 
who should baptize with the spirit of God. He 
was the Voice. Thus he called himself, taking 
his name, not from genealogies which abounded 
in Johns, and could have given him nothing, but 
from his calling, wherein at that time he stood 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 145 

alone. Such voices had not been strange in 
Israel. The utterances of other days we are yet 
studying. This Voice had itself been foretold, so 
great was his significance. It was the voice of a 
prophet which was again heard in the world. It 
moved men. Strong, severe, commanding, it 
compelled them to listen. They gathered around 
the Voice and waited upon his will, which lacked 
nothing of daring and directness. His words 
were his own. Echoes are interesting, but not 
instructive. Such a Voice was needed, and it 
came at the right time. It prepared the way for 
the One who was to follow. He preached a new 
life in a new name, and called men from their old 
ways into the ways of Ood. He drew some men 
closely to himself, and into a jealous friendship, 
and he did not conceal the fact that he was to be 
supplanted. To all questioning he gave the same 
answer. There is One coming. At length He 
came. It was as it had been said. The former 
decreased, to find his greater renown in allegiance 
to another who increased. 

I only touch the years here and there, and let 
the mind move over them. Of the birth of the 
Child we have already thought. His home was 
at the North. The house of Mary has been re- 
moved. This is evident. But we mark the line 
between legend and history when we are told 



146 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

that it was taken up by angels and carried to the 
height of Dahiiatia and afterward across the sea 
to Recanati, in Italy, and at last to the hill of 
Loretto, where it is visited by pilgrims to this 
day. It is said to be " the most frequented 
sanctuary of Christendom." Compare this with 
the memoirs in which there is not an eccentric 
line. The home was in the right place. Galilee 
was an attractive province, with its lakes and 
hills, its cities and towns, its vigorous people, 
" healthy as their own climate and cheerful as 
their own sky," and far enough removed from 
Jerusalem for the growth of strong and independ- 
ent character; rugged, perhaps, but free. In a 
village of Galilee He grew up. It is a fair and 
flourishing village now. Bethlehem and Naza- 
reth keep their place, while other towns have 
been lost, as Cana and Capernaum. Nazareth 
feels the modern life, and the tall chimney of a 
factory rises above its white houses, which are 
long seen as one rides across Esdraelon. There 
was to be no haste, and his life was as the life of 
other boys ; or if it were different, we have not 
been told. No romance hovers around those years. 
Some legends have been made, but with legends 
we have nothing to do, and it is easy to know 
them. We cannot err in thinking of the home 
as sacredly pleasant and helpful, and of the cliild- 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 147 

hood as beautiful in its purity and promise. We 
have allusions to games He may have played 
with other boys — the wedding and the funeral. 
Two lists of genealogy trace his descent, the one 
from Abraham, and the other reaching to Adam 
and thence to God. Great names are in the cata- 
logues, and in these the boy was instructed at 
home and in the village school. Teaching and 
learning were not broad in Galilee, but they 
included strong characters and large events. 
When we limit our estimate to the things which 
a man must know, the education of that people 
is not to be lightly esteemed. They knew the 
better half of science — that God made all things. 
The best truth of Astronomy they perceived — 
that the heavens declare the glory of God. They 
held in their own literature a more accurate view 
of the world and its surroundings than was else- 
where to be found. They had the only account 
of the creation which was scientifically correct. 
Of Psychology they knew nothing, under that 
name ; but they understood men. Sociology was 
well ordered, and was generous and humane. It 
had the highest authority. There is very little 
in the social science of our day which was not 
recognized in the rules of the Hebrew life. There 
was not very much history, but the principles 
which history describes and illustrates were already 



148 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

apprehended. Their wisdom is profitable to us, 
and their poetry has not been surpassed. There 
was for this boy a special charm in the literature 
which was within his reach, because so much of 
it related to his own kindred and the family 
annals. Imagine his delight at the story of 
Joseph, which has no rival to this day; and of 
David, shepherd boy and king. How quickly he 
learned the Twenty-third Psalm, which He was 
told his shepherd grandfather had written ! Then 
the matchless idyl of Ruth, the girl of Moab, 
whose fidelity gave her place in Israel and raised 
her to renown, — and Ruth was his grandmother. 
This and many things besides, the neglected Tables 
tell us. 

It was with a mind well stored, and a heart 
enriched, and curiosity and imagination alert, 
that when He was twelve years old — and twelve 
was old then as it is now — He found his long 
dream fulfilled and was in Jerusalem, the city of 
the great King. He saw the Temple. He knew 
what it was, and that is rare knowledge for any 
age. He stayed behind the company to which 
He belonged, and was found among the revered 
teachers of his people ; questioning them, as his 
right was, and answering their questions. He 
surprised them, whether He asked or answered. 
He was the Teacher. He knew what they had 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 149 

not learned. The familiar painting is correct in 
this, that the light is upon Him, and. from Him 
shines upon the heavy faces which bend toward 
Him. All that heard Him were amazed. He 
was not. Disappointed He was, I think, that 
among all the Doctors no one could tell Him 
what He wanted so much to know, and explain 
what He had been thinking in the fields around 
Nazareth. I suppose no one thought of it that 
day ; but as we now see Him standing there, 
and look into his eyes, and mark the delicacy 
of his mien and the fineness of his thought, 
it is quite certain that painful years are before 
Him, that the world will give Him no sympathy, 
will not hear his word, will not receive his 
light, and will try at last to silence his voice. I 
know that I am reading later events into the 
story, but I have the right to do this. Indeed, 
one can hardly help doing it. I do not know 
why the good physician who has given all we 
have of this incident in the life of the boy did 
not tell us more. Perhaps he wrote all that he 
knew. It is best as it is. We have the few 
sentences, and can think the rest. There are 
tenderness and sadness and promise in the closing 
words. When the Child was found by his sorrow- 
ing father and mother. He said, *' How is it that 
ye sought me ? Did ye not know that I must be 



150 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

in my Father's house ? " It was a new name for 
the Temple, and a new name for Him. It was an 
appropriation of the name "Father" which had 
not before been made. To Him it had profound 
meaning, and its truth took precedence of all 
other relationship. It was right, even dutiful, 
that He should remain at home while Mary and 
Joseph returned to Nazareth. In his own time 
He would go to them. "And they understood 
not the saying which He spake unto them. And 
He went down with them, and came to Nazareth , 
and He was subject unto them; and his mother 
kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus 
advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor 
with God and men." 

Then followed eighteen years, of which we have 
no fuller record than has just been given. No 
mystery comes out of those years, no sign of 
power, no presage of greatness, no intimation that 
He will ever come to the place He holds to-day. 
He was afterward called the Carpenter's Son and 
the Carpenter ; it is probable that the name was 
truly spoken, and that He had learned that 
honorable trade, in which He would be useful. 
There can be no question that liis work was well 
done and according to his promise. We can 
almost fancy that the willing wood yielded itself 
gracefully to liis gentle hand. Why is there 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 151 

nowhere in the memoirs a hint of this ? Be- 
cause it never was so, and honest men were the 
writers. 

We think of him as quiet, kind, obedient, fond 
of flowers and birds ; familiar with nature ; 

Knowing that Nature never did betray 
The heart that loved her. 

He was thoughtful, spiritual, — now we should 
call him dreamy and imaginative. His mind and 
heart were open to the spirit of grace and truth. 
He thought most, as afterward He taught most, 
out-of-doors. 

Thus He came to be about thirty years of age. 
Doctor Luke does not give the age with exact- 
ness. Then He began to teach. He took leave 
of his home, and of his peaceful days, and, with 
his heart full of great desire, went down to the 
Jordan, where the new and strange prophet was 
baptizing. There He found, among the friends 
of his forerunner, his first disciples. He was 
Himself baptized, thus coming under the law of 
the kingdom which was coming into the world. 
Out from his long solitude He passed quietly 
into the three long years which were to complete 
his life. Let me take a few events in their order, 
that we may be reminded hoAV simple his life was, 
and how singular, without precedent, and never 



152 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

to be repeated. Let us mark how admirably 
his life and Himself were adjusted, each to the 
other. In giving a title to this chapter I have 
used the term " Son of Man." This name was 
peculiarly his own. It was made prominent by 
Himself, when He was here, but no one else em- 
ployed it to describe Him. It had a Messianic 
reference. But I am concerned with it now 
because it expresses his position so clearly. It 
is impressive to mark his pains to emphasize this 
relationship to men. It seems as if He was so 
conscious He was the Son of God that He feared 
men would not see that He also belonged to them. 
That they would be impressed by his divine life, 
and not regard his human condition and experi- 
ence. I am the Child of Man, He says ; not of 
a man, but of mankind. I am the Son, not a 
Son, the Son, standing by myself. The Child of 
the race ; The Man, the true man. Thus He con- 
tinually identified Himself with men, intending in 
this way to bless mankind. It was only a few 
days after his baptism, and when He was full of 
the Holy Spirit, that He was " led by the Spirit 
in the wilderness during forty days, being tempted 
by the devil." Who shall venture rudely into 
those strange weeks ! Two accounts are given of 
them, and one which is very brief in addition. 
The impressive point is that He knew Himself 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 153 

and the work which He was to do. The tempta- 
tion was in the line with his work. It was in- 
telligent, and was directed against the purpose 
which ruled Him and the way of its accomplish- 
ment. The temptation was the disclosure of his 
plan. We see what thoughts were in his mind 
and what purposes engaged Him. He felt his 
power. He knew that the kingdoms of the world 
were to be his. Otherwise the temptation which 
related to these would have had no meaning. 
Why should it have been suggested that there 
was an easy way to authority if He was not seek- 
ing authority, and bent upon taking the way that 
was hard, but which must be trodden if his life was 
to be fulfilled ? As histoiy can be traced in laws, 
so desire and purpose can be found in this proof 
of his constancy. One point of contrast should 
be noticed here. In describing the work of the 
Son of Man, St. Paul gave him a name not before 
spoken, but of large significance. He called Him 
Adam, the last Adam ; meaning that He also 
stood at the head of a race. Let us notice here 
that under temptation the second Adam, unlike 
the first, kept HimseK down and adhered to the 
will of God ; kept his integrity ; held to the work 
and the way for which He had been given to the 
world. Compare the trifling in Eden with these 
words in the wilderness, words of loyalty and 



154 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

victory : '' Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, 
and Him only shalt thou serve." 

Pass on a few days. There was a wedding in 
Cana, and his disciples were there with Him. 
Perhaps it was their coming which brought dis- 
may to the house, for it was found that the wine 
had failed. Though He was a guest, He came to 
the relief of the household and provided wine. 
Thus He saved the wedding feast from lasting 
discredit. It was his blessing on the bride. He 
was a Man, the Son of Man, rich in gentlest sym- 
pathies, courteous and kind. The story is told as 
simply as if He had brought the wine from the 
neighboring vineyard. It is told only by that 
one of his biographers who wrote most fully of 
the spirit of Christ, of his deeper thought and 
word. This was the beginning of his signs, some- 
times called miracles. There is no mark of 
wonder. " He manifested his glory, and his dis- 
ciples believed on Him." As they were on the 
spot, they had the opportunity to know what was 
done. Luke does not give this incident, for he 
was not a disciple, nor was Mark, and Matthew 
had not then been called. They could have told 
it from the report of others, but they did not. It 
was overshadowed in their minds by greater 
events. It was left for the only annalist who was 
an eye-witness to describe what he had seen. He 



y 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 155 

wrote like an old man, remembering small things, 
the number of the waterpots, and their capacity. 

A little later He drove the traders and money- 
changers from the Temple, which again He called 
" My Father's house." Another could have 
cleansed the sacred courts. It was a patriot's 
right. Yet it was remarkable that this young 
Galilean should take upon Himself such author- 
ity in Jerusalem. Only John describes this. I 
suppose that he was there, and remembered the 
scourge of cords and the sheep and doves. When 
there was a similar act three years later, Matthew, 
Mark, and Luke write of it, but John is silent. 
He had told his story. It was at the first cleans- 
ing that the words were spoken which long after- 
ward were called to mind : " Destroy this temple, 
and in three days I will raise it up." John under- 
stood Him to speak of "the temple of his body." 

He was in Jerusalem, and was winning the 
belief of many by his signs, when at night a man 
of prominence and of wealth, a teacher and ruler, 
came to Him to inquire concerning the kingdom 
of heaven. Why did the ruler come to Him, a 
carpenter? It was a flattering attention, and 
would be made the most of by one who wished to 
be approved that He might gain the people. It 
was of little use to converse upon the ways of God 
until the man's heart had entered them. He had 



156 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITEBATUBE 

to tell him that the kingdom of heaven was not 
to be reached by the road on which he was trav- 
elling. He was kind, but decided. 

Quietly and with skill the ruler's inquiry was 
met and his mind diverted : " Verily, verily, I say 
unto thee, except a man be born anew, he cannot 
see the kingdom of God." It must be entered 
by life, a new life. Three years afterward this 
Jewish ruler came again to Christ, who had been 
crucified, and brought a hundred pound weight 
of myrrh and aloes for his embalming. Only St. 
John mentions this, as he only told of the former 
coming. But see what a place the young Naza- 
rene was taking, what words He was speaking, in 
all simplicity, but with strange authority and im- 
pressiveness 1 

A few days after the night with Nicodemus 
He was in Samaria, passing through, as the Jews 
were not accustomed to do, and wearied at noon 
He rested at the well which one of his ancestoi*s 
had dug, and which still bore his name, as it does 
to this day. A woman of the country came to 
draw water. He asked her to give Him to drink, 
for she could draw from the deep well. She 
jested with Him, and soon, as if He had made no 
request, she heard such words as she had never 
listened to before. Forget how familiar they are 
and hear them for the first time, with Ebal and 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 157 

Gerizim towering over you, and the quiet of a 
Syrian noon brooding upon the plain. "Every 
one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again ; 
but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall 
give him shall never thirst ; but the water that I 
shall give him shall become in him a well of water 
springing up unto eternal life." Soon the well 
and the water had passed from their thought. 
She had drawn Him away, and He said, " God is 
a Spirit ; and they that worship Him must wor- 
ship in spirit and truth." " I know that Messiah 
Cometh," she answered : "• When He is come, He 
will declare unto us all things." '' I that speak 
unto thee am He." She left her water-jar beside 
the well. Her errand was forgotten. A few 
drops of the true water had reached her lips. She 
hastened back to the town and bade the men she 
met come and see Him. They came and begged 
Him to remain with them, and He did. This 
was at the beginning of his three years of min- 
istry. In these instances see his consciousness of 
Himself, his perfect confidence, his clear knowl- 
edge of the truth He was to teach, the work He 
was to do ; and of the final result in the accom- 
plishment of his purpose. He was constant, 
determined. He knew Himself, and understood 
the life He w^as to live. 

I cannot follow the incidents farther in this 



158 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERAIURE 

manner. Yet they need to be read together, that 
we may feel their unity, the one purpose which 
they disclose, the steady movement of the desire 
which nothing can interrupt. It is a stream of in- 
tention flowing to the sea, widening and deepening 
as it runs. Let me name a few points, still tak- 
ing them in their order. In Sychar He said : '' My 
meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and 
to accomplish his work." At Nazareth He went 
into the synagogue, where He had listened from 
his boyhood, and when He had read from the 
scroll of Isaiah of One who was to come, who 
should do for the world what no one was do- 
ing or could do, because the Spirit of the Lord 
should be upon Him, He said : " To-day hath this 
Scripture been fulfilled in your ears." His old 
neighbors, his mother's friends, all bare Him wit- 
ness, and wondered at the gracious words which 
proceeded out of his mouth. He moved on, 
teaching, and giving signs of Himself, — thus 
it is written, — giving sight to the blind and 
strength to the lame, quieting the storm, filling 
the net, calling back into the world those who 
had left it. Even more remarkable were his 
declarations concerning Himself. Such words 
had never been spoken, and have not been spoken 
since his lips were closed. We have heard them 
so often that we cannot see how wonderful they 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 159 

are. Others have wrought miracles, but no other 
has ever asserted such greatness of being and 
authority. " I am the Truth." " I am the Life." 
" I am the Resurrection." " I give unto men eter- 
nal life." Eternal life is to know the Father and 
Me — this He taught in his prayer. Hence He 
called men to Himself. Only by having Him could 
they have his real gifts. " Come unto Me, and I 
will give you rest." " Because I live, ye shall 
live." " He that f olloweth Me shall have the light 
of life." 

Notice in what strong and varied and unprec- 
edented terms He declared his mission to the 
world. It was to give life. What life? The 
Divine life — there was but one, that which was 
given in the beginning ; life with its Divine virtue 
in it. 

This consciousness of Himself, this Personal- 
ity, is most manifest at the end. Before this, and 
as if He recalled the family Psalm, He named 
Himself the Good Shepherd, and added new 
words to the name : " The Good Shepherd giveth 
his life for the sheep." From any one else this 
would have been prophecy: with Him it was 
intention. He did not speak often of his dying, 
but it was always in his mind. His friends were 
not able to hear much concerning it, and it was 
not in their thought as it was in his. Once He 



160 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

spoke of the serpent that was lifted up in the 
wilderness, and applied the words to Himself. 
They did not then know all that He meant. 

He told his disciples that He must go unto 
Jerusalem and be rejected and killed. He was 
transfigured, his face and his raiment glistened, 
and Moses and Elias appeared and talked with 
Him of his decease which He was about to 
accomplish at Jerusalem. He charged the three 
friends who were with Him to say nothing of 
this until He was risen from the dead. On 
another day He took his twelve disciples apart 
as they were on their way to Jerusalem, and told 
them that He should be crucified, and on the 
third day would rise again. He made this into 
a sacrament of remembrance, and broke bread and 
poured wine into the cup, as his body was to be 
broken and his blood was to be shed. That 
night He was betrayed, and the next day — 

There is a green hill far away, 

Without the city wall, 

Where the dear Lord was crucified. 

This was surprising to his friends. They had 
seen his power and were not prepared for his 
submission. They knew that every road out of 
Palestine was open to Him, and they saw Him 
move steadily to the only dangerous place in the 
world. They thought that He was to restore the 



y 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITER AT UBE 161 

kingdom to Israel, and erect the throne of David ; 
and they saw Him consent to the cross. They 
did not conceal their disappointment, and had to 
learn when all was over that He had done as it 
had been written of Him. Only a day or two 
before the end He said in the most impressive 
tone, '' And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
will draw all men unto Myself." 

It was a sublime confidence. There was a new 
view of death. It had been looked upon as the 
defeat of hope, the setting aside of plans, the 
breaking of life. To Him it was the fulfilment 
of hope, the advancing of plans, the expanding 
of life. Where men looked for nothing He saw 
everything. He kept his assurance to the last. 
Even on the cross He drew one man to Himself. 
He died as He had lived, calm, resolved, faithful, 
committing his spirit to the Father whose will 
had formed his life. 

I have given to this much thought for many 
years. I do not know it well. The facts are 
plain, but there is over them a thin veil which 
has never been lifted. I cannot clearly explain 
all these things. I am not surprised nor grieved 
at this. Should we be able to enter into the 
deepest counsels of Divine Love ? The Love it- 
self passeth knowledge, we are told, and we hold 
it true. Should it not be so in its deepest works? 



162 SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 

Explanations are not wanting. But he cannot 
have thought deeply who is content with them. 
It is a place for stillness and reverence. The 
blessing is readily taken. The full reason we 
must leave with God. We know in part. Let 
US be glad that all we know and think and trust 
is but a part. I mark this, the special, profound 
meaning of his death, in many ways asserted. 
He had suffered before. No man can know the 
burden of the years of sacrifice. Hii soul was 
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, before the 
cross was reached. But not in this was He to 
give his life for his sheep, save as this was the 
inseparable prelude to the end on Calvary. I am 
glad for my own sake that I do not understand 
this. I am glad for the sake of others that I do 
not think I understand it. We can, at least, be 
sure that He was crucified, even as He said, and 
that He rose from the dead, and ascended from 
the sight of men. 

I have tried to present in a few lines the life of 
Christ as it is seen in his biographies. I have 
yet to speak of the life within this, and of its 
manifestation in word and deed. I do not need 
to repeat that in Him we have the divine way of 
accomplishing the Creator's purposes regarding 
men ; of giving life, a new life, to the world. At 
least, that is my contention. Whatever else He 



SON OF MAN IN EARLY LITERATURE 163 

does for us, He has done this. Whatever other 
forces work for this end, this is the appointed 
power whereby we are to be raised to ourselves 
and our true destiny. Man is to have a new gift 
of life, in which all he has learned will have its 
place ; his affections, his virtues, his accomplish- 
ments, his earnings, all that is good. We have 
gone far enough to see the grandeur of this Divine 
presence ; the greatness of its Personality ; the 
unprecedented claims and proffers which attend 
it; the unfaltering purpose which rules it, con- 
sents to death and conquers it ; and all that it 
may glorify God upon the earth, and finish the 
work He has given it to do. 



IV 

THE PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 



THE PURPOSE AND METHOD OF 
CHRIST 



It is in Jesus Christ that the Creator has given 
to the world a new and personal force for its re- 
covery ; that man may regain himself and secure 
the life of honor and strength for which he was 
designed. In studying this Divine purpose it has 
seemed best to dwell upon the l:fe of Christ and 
that which it contained ; to the end that we may 
be impressed with its eminent fitness for the mis- 
sion to which it was appointed. I have already 
presented his life in some of its incidents and 
relations, and I desire now to enter it more 
deeply. He desired to have this revealed to men ; 
that even his heart should be open before them. 
His nature was disclosed in acts. The Word 
unveiled Himself in words ; in thoughts, too ; 
intentions, emotions, which He would not con- 
ceal. Even his prayer at the foot of his cross 
was heard of men ; his cry in the agony of 
Gethsemane ; his thought and feeling in his 
crucifixion. All that his friends could receive 



168 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

He gave to them, and as He went away He 
promised even more knowledge of Himself, and 
this they have given to us. 

And so the Word had breath, and wrought 

With human hands the creed of creeds 
In loveliness of perfect deeds, 

More strong than all poetic thought ; 
Which he may read that binds the sheaf, 

Or builds the house, or digs the grave. 
And those wild eyes that watch the wave 

In roarings round the coral reef. 

The study of the life of Christ in recent years 
has brought Him nearer to us. We have seen 
Him among men, revealing Himself, letting us 
look upon his design as it touched the lives 
which were around Him. We have made use of 
the privilege afforded us to know Him, and in 
this we have lost nothing of reverence and admira- 
tion, and have gained something in obedience and 
love. 

In all that we see and hear there stands forth 
the Personality which calls for homage. He is 
above all which He does. He is greater than 
his life. To judge what He did and said apart 
from Himself can only result in confusion and 
misconception. Let us not fail to mark his con- 
stant pains to have us comprehend the truth of 
his being. He is grieved when men are content 



/ 



PUBPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 169 

with what He does, and do not take Him ; when 
they want loaves in the wilderness, but do not 
care for Himself, the Bread from heaven. " I " 
is of necessity the most prominent word in all the 
accounts of his life. He knows and asserts his 
relation to God, v/hom He calls "The Father," 
and "My Father." He knows that He has come 
from Him. There are no terms which describe 
this perfectly. It is plain that every time He 
speaks of it his words mean too little. There is 
a mystic tone which reminds us of their insuffi- 
ciency. " Believe Me that I am in the Father, 
and the Father in Me." "That all men may 
know the Son, even as they know the Father." 
" I do nothing of Myself, but as the Father taught 
Me, I speak these things." " I and my Father 
are one." " My Father is greater than I." " All 
things that the Father hath are mine." "And 
this is life eternal, that they should know Thee, 
the only true God, and Him whom thou didst 
send, even Jesus Christ." " That they may all 
be one ; even as thou. Father, art in me and I in 
Thee." Let me read one more sentence, and this 
from the first of the Gospels. " All things have 
been delivered unto Me of my Father: and no 
one knoweth the Son, save the Father ; neither 
doth any know the Father, save the Son, and he 
to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him." 



ITO PUBPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

These things were spoken, were written, were 
believed, and they are in keeping with the life 
into whose years they are set. They are in place 
in one life, but not in any other of which we have 
knowledge. I pray you to mark the presence of 
this consciousness of oneness with God. Even if 
the words are not given precisely in the form in 
which they were spoken, syllable by syllable, I 
cannot doubt that they present thoughts which 
He expressed, and which are so impressive that 
they could not readily be changed, or lost. 

I do not wish to speak of this now. But if we 
are to study the life of any one, his words are a 
large part of the material at our command. With 
thoughts like these in his mind, how could it be 
otherwise than that the whole life should be per- 
vaded by them? Thus Ave find it in its entire 
course, and it is never so manifest as in his last 
hours with the friends whom He is to leave in the 
world to teach the things learned of Him, and to 
advance the work for which He has given Him- 
self. We shall do well to read these verses with 
this intent, that we may mark his consciousness 
of the life of God. It was of this that He was to 
give to men. I have no theological phrases or 
purposes ; for it is only the fact in its simplicity 
which is now before us. Gratitude and hope hail 
this coming of life to give life to the world, and 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 171 

may well be satisfied. If life is to come it must 
be from above. As it was the first time, so must 
it be the second time. The Creator must be the 
Saviour for his own sake and for our sake. Who 
shall presume to rescue and restore the work of 
God ? If one may compare two things which are 
impossible to men, it would seem to be easier to 
create the world than to save it ; once to make a 
man in the divine image than to make him the 
second time when the image has been broken and 
its value lost. The good intention it may not be 
hard to discover. It is the power which is lack- 
ing. Hence we rejoice with great joy, not merely 
over this life of wonderful beauty and lofty desire, 
but over a life which has come out of heaven, 
and whose sources of strength are in God, and 
are exhaustless. 

In what terms shall I describe the relation of 
Christ to God? I have studied his life, consid- 
ered his words, observed his influence, marked his 
place in the world, felt his presence, and received 
the witness of those who in special intimacy have 
walked with Him. My own conception of the 
Person of Christ is as exalted in form as I can now 
have it, while I am assured that He will be more 
and more glorified in my thought as the centuries 
grow. 

Personal interest is not to control one's judg- 



172 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

ment of truth. But it is to me a cause for profound 
gratitude that here my belief and my interests, 
my desire and my conviction, are entirely in accord. 
I am speaking for myself, and not another, and not 
venturing to measure any one's contentment. It 
may at least be said that the greater Christ is, the 
richer are those who call Him friend. I ought in 
honesty to present this result of my own study, 
attended with the prolonged testing of confidence 
and experience. 

Yet for my design in these pages, I prefer to 
give you the statements of others, and of those not 
of my own theological school, but of the wider 
fraternity of Christian men. I think I can do no 
better than to repeat the words of the late revered 
preacher to Harvard University, whose life was 
so strong that many churches desired it, whose 
spirit was so gentle that many churches claimed it. 
If any one can mediate between variant opinions 
and expressions, it is Dr. Andrew Peabody. These 
are his words, spoken in King's Chapel : '' We 
have in Jesus Divine humanity, God manifest in 
the flesh, God in Christ, all of God that can be in- 
carnate, all of God that we can fully comprehend," 
''all of the Divine that is communicable." ''God 
in Christ is the only God that the Christian 
knows." To this I may add the remark of Presi- 
dent James Walker : *' We see in Christ what we 



y 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 173 

worship in God." The Greek Fathers with their 
insight saw in Him the " intensified presence " of 
God. 

But the life of Christ is not related to the 
Father alone. It is in vital relation to men also. 
The life is in a man. He carries the life of man 
through to the end. The man is born, he lives, 
he grows, he dies, and is entombed. The eternal 
Word became flesh, and dwelt among men, and 
they beheld his glory. This is written. Living 
thus among them. He blessed them. He gave 
Himself and his own life, in sympathy, guidance, 
comfort, light, and life. He was so near to them 
that He could touch them. Men touched Him, 
and drew away strength. Virtue came forth from 
Him. Light flashed from his fingers into nighted 
eyes, and health was plucked from the fringe of 
his garment. When his bidding fell upon the 
storm it dropped into quiet. Thus it is told by 
men who were there. He was the Good Shep- 
herd, who must be with liis flock, where they can 
see Him, and knoAV his voice ; where He can 
defend them, and if need be give his life for them. 
He must be able to go up the mountain if one 
has strayed, and take it upon his shoulders, and 
bring it home where He can rejoice over it. All 
this He was. Indeed, He asserted a more inti- 
mate relation with men, whom He called sheep. 



174 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHBIST 

It was an old name for them, and in that land 
an affectionate name. Strangers blamed Him 
because He extended his favors to men whom 
they disapproved. " You would do the same," 
He answered. " If one of your sheep was lost, 
you would go after it." ''Yes, my sheep," they 
thought. " Well, these are my sinners and my 
publicans." Thus He claimed men, as if they 
were his. Were they not his? But He went 
farther than this. The shepherd is, after all, 
external. " I am the vine," He said ; "ye are the 
branches." This was to his friends, but it was the 
word they were to pass on. Now, the vine gives 
its own life to the branches. The branches are 
the vine, extended, multiplied. If its life is 
Divine, their life becomes Divine, for it is this 
which it has to impart. An Italian monk, a poet, 
has called attention to the fact that this is all the 
vine can do. It cannot give beams for a house, 
nor timber for a ship. It can only give its life, 
that is, itself. This may be pressing the figure 
unduly. But it is certain that it was this which 
He gave, and, in comparison with this. He gave 
nothing beside. For what were bread, and eyes, 
and health to be mentioned with his own life ! 
Indeed, He left all illustration when He said, 
" Because I live, ye shall live." See where in his 
consciousness He stood, bringing from the Father 



FUBPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 175 

the life which was his own, and bestowing it upon 
men, that they might live as the children of God. 
I wish that I knew of some stronger terms in 
which to describe his devotion to men. The facts 
exceed all statements. We need to avoid all 
thought of otherness, as if He was between God 
and the world. We are not to regard Him as sep- 
arate from us, standing apart, near but remote ; 
only a messenger from heaven, or, perhaps, the very 
grace of heaven. He was in the Father and He 
was in the world. He believed in the world. The 
earth itself He had made — thus the New Testa- 
ment teaches. In our statements creation is often 
ascri})ed to the Father Almighty ; but the Gospels 
and the Epistles present the Son as the Maker of 
all things. He Avould be interested in the world 
which He had made and was holding together, and 
in the events which were wrought out upon it from 
the beginning. There was nothing here which 
did not in some way touch Him, because of his 
relation to the Father of men and to the men 
themselves who were his kindred, both in their 
Divine nature and in the manhood which w^as his. 
In Him the Father came to men and was among 
them. In Him men came to the Father, com- 
mended by his brotherhood. For thirty-three 
years He lived among men. One who knew Him 
well applied to Him the words of the prophet 



176 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

regarding the Messiah — '' Himself took our 
infirmities, and bare our sicknesses." Another, 
whose name we do not know, wrote that He 
was " in all points tempted like as we are, yet 
without sin." Indeed, his connection with man 
was all his own. It has been truly said that He 
was the only man of the race who chose to be 
born into it. He came for a purpose. Mark 
how thoroughly He was involved with the world, 
carrying it always upon his heart. He longed 
to see it at peace with itself and its Maker. He 
rejoiced over every good man, over the return of 
every wanderer, and every sign of better things. 
He was grieved over its wrong-doing, its insincer- 
ity, its selfishness. He knew that He had come 
to set it free from the evil, and to establish it in 
righteousness. He knew that this would cost Him 
his life, but He was willing it should be so. 
To die, and yet to fail among his own people 
was hard, for his love and desire were strong. 
He loved the city and wept over it — " If thou 
hadst known ! " " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how 
often would I have gathered thy children to- 
gether, even as a hen gathereth her chickens 
under her wings, and ye would not ! " He held 
men in his heart and named them with Himself. 
He taught them to say, " Our Father which 
art in heaven," and if, for Himself, He never said 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 177 

" Our Father," still after his resurrection He 
did speak to his friends of " My Father and your 
Father," as of "My God and your God." This 
is more than "Our Father " would have meant, 
in its disclosure of a special power to be used for 
man's advantage. 

The name Jesus was a personal designation. 
It is found in the Annunciation to his mother, 
and was appointed because of its appropriateness. 
" For it is He that shall save his people from 
their sins." The name Emmanuel was recalled 
from Isaiah, but was not afterward applied to 
Him, so far as we know. In the Gospels Christ 
is an official name, and is more precisely rendered 
" the Christ," or the Anointed. He seldom used 
this name. He said, "One is your master, even 
the Christ." The two are well joined in this 
passage ; Simon Peter said, "Thou art the Christ, 
the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered, 
" Blessed art thou." They are found in another 
form in the Prayer: "This is life eternal, that 
they should know Thee, the only true God, and 
Him whom Thou didst send, even Jesus Christ." 
When we pass to St. Paul's writings Christ has 
become a personal name. In this the office takes 
the place of the man, who is known by his mission 
and work. To be the anointed of God is evidently 
much more than to be the Son of Mary. Which 



178 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHBIST 

name we shall use is chiefly a matter of personal 
preference. It is natural to retain the name in 
the Gospels. But we are more accurate, histori- 
cally, when we call Him Christ, and this is more 
in keeping with the name uniformly given to his 
friends. Yet both names are to be regarded. 
For Jesus, with all the glory of his birth, the 
beauty of his youth, the strength of his man- 
hood, the sublimity of his death and resurrection, 
was the anointed One. Upon Him descended 
the Holy Spirit, in Him dwelt grace and truth. 
When we have Jesus clearly and permanently in 
our minds we are prepared to see Him "The 
Anointed," at once the Son of Man and the Son of 
God. The influence of Christmas will preserve 
in a delightful way the Child Jesus. Our elder 
knowledge, treasuring the tender faith of child- 
hood, must see Him who was born in Bethlehem 
anointed with grace that the world may be blessed 
with the peace of God. 

It was in the fulfilment of his mission as Christ, 
the anointed, that He preached the Kingdom of 
God, or the Kingdom of heaven. He knew well 
what the Kingdom is. It stands in the will of 
God. It is the extension of the principles by 
which heaven is constituted. When these are 
established on the earth the Kingdom of heaven is 
here. It is in its last analysis the nature of the 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 179 

Eternal expressing itself for the governance of 
those who have his life, and responded to by their 
nature which is of his. AYliether in heaven or on 
earth this is its essential character. The Kingdom 
of God among men was meant to be as simple, 
natural, constant, as among trees and stars. As 
it was preached by Him, it was to be composed 
of men avIio had received the Divine life and were 
to keep it in the rule of heaven. When one 
man, or one company of men, is placed under 
these rules, the Kingdom has come. It is within 
a man when he brings his thoughts under its con- 
trol. It is among men, wherever there are those 
who live in the obedience of God. Many do this. 
More will do it. It is the consummation of 
human hopes. In it is the magnificent expression 
of Christ's desire. There is no hindering mys- 
tery. There is no difficulty, no complication, 
when men desire this. It does not involve dis- 
organization, but purification and uplifting. It 
is not meat and drink ; yet it requires the indus- 
try which covers the fields with grain, and brings 
streams of water from the hills. It is " righteous- 
ness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." 
That was the definition which St. Paul sent into 
the Empire. It requires kings and all who are 
in authority to fashion their laws after the will of 
God. It would brino- all business, and all social 



180 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

relations, under the Sermon on the Mount. It 
requires honor, service, charity. All are called 
into it: the poor, the prodigal, the rich, the 
prudent, the near and the distant. It is every 
man's kingdom and country. Tliis He taught. 
He was plain, but patient. He sought the be- 
ginnings and then would trust them as leaven 
and seed. It was thus in nature, and this was 
nature. That which He wished to secure would 
be gained if men would obey Him. He would 
have it begin with his own people, but it was 
to fill the world. No countries are named in 
the Lord's Prayer. In the Beatitudes those 
whom He blesses possess both heaven and earth. 
It was an eternal Kingdom. To leave the world 
could riot remove one from it, for in his thought 
heaven and earth are one. The citizens of the 
Kingdom would all be brethren, possessing the 
Divine life, knowing a common descent and cher- 
ishing brotherly sympathy and aifection. They 
would be united by blood, and this would be 
thicker than anything else that flows. The 
world would be really the Father's house, or a 
portion of it, and the family life would grow 
witliin its walls. He taught the prayer which 
we still repeat, not always realizing how deep are 
the words we say, and perhaps not always con- 
senting to them for ourselves, — '' Thy Kingdom 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 181 

come, Thy will be done." It is the divine sum- 
mons to loyalty. Is not this the purpose we have 
traced, to bring men to God, to give the second 
time the Divine life? 

" The Kingdom of heaven is at hand " was the 
cry which preceded his appearance. The King 
had been sung by psalmists and announced by 
prophets. He accepted the royal office, declared 
the royal authority, set up the Kingdom in his 
own name. Abraham had begun a nation. Moses 
had restored it. David had given it solidity and 
extension. But the kingdom of God was not then 
in the earth, save in a few devoted hearts, and in 
a purpose which could not be disturbed. The 
herald had declared his approach, but had dis- 
turbed nothing except the wrong-doing in the 
lives of men. He said no word of politics, re- 
moved no business, left men to plant the field 
and sail the sea, to collect tribute and defend the 
country as before. But He called for unselfish 
lives, for integrity, and quietness, and content- 
ment. He would break up all shams, demolish 
insincerity, and by making the hearts of men clean 
prepare them for the coming King, in whose rule 
they would find uprightness and all good. No 
one could be in it who was not loyal, and no one 
was loyal who was not good. 

The King came. The Psalm had announced 



182 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

Him as afterward the Epistle named Him and 
described his rule — " Thy throne, O God, is for- 
ever and ever ; and the sceptre of uprightness is 
the sceptre of thy Kingdom. Thou hast loved 
righteousness, and hated iniquity." 

There were upon Him none of the signs of 
royalty, though his birth was with more than regal 
splendor. But its reality was there and He soon 
made this felt. For He was anointed with the 
oil of gladness above his fellows. He asserted 
authority over the minds of men and over their 
hearts, and made their destiny turn on their loyalty 
to Him. " Ye did it unto Me." He ordered their 
lives, instructed their thoughts, diverted their pur- 
poses, changed their beliefs, startled their religion, 
revealed their life to come. He began his new 
Constitution with the Beatitudes, as the Ten Com- 
mandments called to remembrance the favor of 
God ; but He ended with a standing or a falling 
house ; standing or falling as it obeyed or neglected 
his teaching. He gave honor to those who had 
been before Him ; from a child they had been his 
heroes. But, when He would. He boldly set aside 
their words ; " Ye have heard . . . But I say 
unto you." He toqk two commandments from 
their obscurity, covered with a mass of regula- 
tions, and gave them spirit and life for all time. 
He stretched his rule into eternity. With the 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 183 

wealth, and power, and virtue of a king He be- 
stowed his impartial benefits, and made men feel 
even here the blessedness of a reign which should 
be forever, in "the city and commonwealth of 
God," — "a community whose service is simple 
righteousness, and whose patriotism is an inex- 
haustible love of perfection." 

There was no display. He moved quietly 
through the few months which were allotted 
Him. At the close He came from Bethany into 
the Capital, the city of David, as He had never 
come before. A great company attended Him. 
A multitude from his own North country, who 
had come to Jerusalem for the feast, went out to 
meet Him, and hailed Him with their hosannas. 
They spread their garments in the way, and cast 
in his path branches from the trees. They cried 
as He rode on, " Blessed is the King that cometh 
in the name of the Lord : peace in heaven and 
glory in the highest." He came as a king, because 
He was a King. Only once, and it was Sunday, 
He let the world see his royalty. So once He 
had stood on Hermon, and his face shone and 
his garments glistened. That this was but once, 
and that never anything resembling it came at 
another time, is a witness to its truth. If any 
writer had desired to clothe Him with splendor 
it would have been done twice. The restraint is 



184 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

testimony. At all times submissive, meek, and 
lowly. He consented to be transfigured ; He con- 
sented to be enthroned. It was enough for reve- 
lation, and it was soon over. Then He wept 
before the city, and the people cried, " Crucify 
Him ! " The world crucified Him. Europe con- 
demned Him to the cross. Asia furnished the 
cross to which He was nailed, as it had desired. 
Africa, land of servants, gave a man to bear the 
cross when He sank under it. The inscription 
in three languages proclaimed Him King of the 
Jews. The title pleased no one. If all after 
King had been omitted, the writing would have 
been with dignity. Pilate answered to the men 
who complained, " What I have written, T have 
written." That was evident, but he had not 
written anything, except Jesus of Nazareth. 

The crucifixion was thought to be the end. 
The multitudes who had been brought together 
by the spectacle went their way, smiting their 
breasts. Priests and rulers breathed more freely 
when his reproving presence was at length with- 
drawn. The hearts of friends were in despair. 
The mother had given herself into the keeping of 
the disciple whom Jesus loved, and they lived in 
the affection of the Cross. The new tomb re- 
ceived its earliest tenant. It was in a garden, as 
it was in a garden that the need of a sepulchre 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 185 

began, even as it had been foretold. The stone 
kept the door, and the seal kept the stone, and 
the guard of soldiers watched before the deserted 
house. " Make it as sure as you can " was the per- 
mission and command. But nothing was ended, 
save that the method of the life which moved 
among men was changed. Its works were not 
undone : the blind retained their sight, the lame 
walked ; the young man was seen on the streets 
of Nain, and the ruler's daughter gladdened her 
father's house ; while Lazarus passed when he 
would between Bethany and Jerusalem. The 
words lived in the fulness of their truth — com- 
mandments, promises, revelations. The Lord's 
Prayer, the Beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, 
parted with nothing of their force. The air was 
full of the life He had breathed into it. 

In his thought there was no change, no rest, 
as his purposes, often declared, went on to their 
accomplishment. More firm than heaven and 
earth, his sayings could not pass away. The last 
night with his disciples, the night of the Passover 
and the Eucharist, was glorified with his unfalter- 
ing, increasing design. Never had He spoken so 
fully of Himself and his intent. He knew that a 
few hours would bring Him to the cross. But with 
a confidence unparalleled; clear, steady, gener- 
ous, loving. Divine ; He looked through the clouds 



186 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

of death and saw his life in its Divine and eternal 
triumph. " I have overcome the world." " O 
righteous Father, the world knew Thee not, but I 
knew Thee ; and these knew that Thou didst send 
Me ; and I made known unto them Thy name, and 
will make it known ; that the love wherewith 
Thou lovedst Me may be in them, and I in them." 
Here was more than submission and more than 
courage. Here was the clear consciousness of 
his life and its design, and the certainty that these 
would pass victorious through all which awaited 
them ; nay, more, that they would be fulfilled in 
the very events which to the world appeared to 
thwart them. His confidence remained through 
all the dreadful hours. It was perfect, even upon 
the cross. 

He was the King, and He knew that his king- 
dom was coming, and He knew the way of its 
approach. It was as plain as the road over which 
He passed on the day when the inconstant world 
hailed Him with its hosannas. When his king- 
dom covers the earth, the needed restoration of 
man to himself and to his Lord will be estab- 
lished. For this the world waits. It is wise only 
when it beholds the method of God, and sees in 
his Son the King whose reign is in righteousness 
and mercy. Whatever agencies may serve his 
thought, whatever kings may move in his train, 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 187 

by whatever influences He may be assisted, in 
nature and in the will of the world, He alone 
draws men to the Divine life which is life indeed. 
His force is even now bringing in this result. 
I have allowed myself for a moment to an- 
ticipate that which is to come. I have done this 
lest in studying the life of Christ as it was 
upon the earth we should lose sight of the mean- 
ing of it, and of the end toward which it is 
advancing. 

In returning to the history itself, it is evident 
that the teaching of Christ and his life are 
adapted to all times and all lands. This is seen 
to be true in the nature of things, but it has also 
been abundantly proved. In his Personality He 
is at home anywhere, while his words are readily 
applied wherever they are taken, and they have 
been taken into all the world. There are no 
marks of nationality. The illustrations, as given 
in the parables, are appreciated everywhere. Even 
while He speaks so often of a kingdom. He does 
not give his approval to any particular form of 
government. Every land has its political life and 
institutions and will understand the terms He uses. 
But He does not disturb the sovereignties of the 
nations. His kingdom might be in a republic, or 
in a monarchy, under emperor or czar, or the head 
of an island tribe. He would bring the emperor or 



188 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

the chief under his rule and thus administer the in- 
terests of the nation. This has been found practi- 
cable, for the kingdom is already established under 
every form of political arrangement. It embraces 
all sorts of good men and all kinds of honest and 
useful work. It needs every man, and offers to 
every one a chance to earn the daily bread for 
which He prays, and doubles its value with the 
sweetness of industry and honesty. He gave broad 
principles of living, wherein class would not be at 
variance with class. Differences of judgment, ap- 
parent differences of interest, would be referred to 
the king, and would be settled under his direction. 
His rules honestly administered would be found 
adequate to the work required of them. It is 
true that He once refused to be a judge or adviser 
when two brothers quarrelled over an inheritance. 
There was no need of his interference, and if the 
men knew his teaching they knew the rule by 
which their dispute should be settled. He is 
really a Prince of Peace wherever men and na- 
tions order their ways by his principles. The 
highest arbitration makes Him the King and his 
laws supreme. 

An eminent judge has recently said : " A very 
perfect administration of justice would be found 
where the courts had no contested litigation to 
decide, because their counsellors and attorneys 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST l89 

were so learned, so assiduous, so disinterested, so 
frank, so fair, and so faithful as to induce all clients 
to do justly and to submit to right." This was in 
recognition of the virtue of a lawyer of high rank 
of whom it was more directly said, " He sacrificed 
himself, he labored for others, not as in obedience 
to a stern law-giver, but with the sweetness as 
of a Catholic saint." A character like this of my 
friend and classmate, Christ would create in every 
lawyer and in every man. 

His rule enlarges manhood and extends freedom. 
He would break all chains and have men free 
indeed, living in intelligence and uprightness. 
Hence He fosters schools and churches, and pro- 
motes all useful learning. He is true to his own 
nation in this, for there were schools for educa- 
tion in Judea " long before Plato had gathered his 
disciples round liim in the olive grove, or Zeno in 
the Portico." 

His rule encourages art, which had warrant in 
tabernacle and temple, and all which belonged to 
them, and still more in the world which had given 
its imagery to the Scriptures. He let men see the 
world, and know it, and He nurtured their love of 
the true and beautiful. More than all. He 
furnished in the incidents of his own life the 
choicest themes for music and painting. It is not 
by chance that the art of Christian lands is most 



190 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

prized, both for its skill and that which it 
portrays. 

The head of his kingdom is the ideal King, 
sovereign in authority, righteous and generous, 
living without fear and ruling without compul- 
sion. His banner over us is love. Patriotism is 
a department of religion, for the King is Divine. 
Citizenship is worship. In a republic voting 
is religious. The holy city rises from the earth 
to meet the holy city descending out of heaven. 
He enjoined no form of speech. The tongues of 
Babel were not to be one tongue, but the hearts of 
Babel were to be one heart. Many tongues were 
heard at Pentecost, and the Bible is already writ- 
ten in the languages of the earth. Learning has 
done some of its best work in translating his 
words, and in this has honored them and exalted 
itself. 

His teachings are not affected by the advance 
of learning. He gave no opinion and no instruc- 
tion upon any question of science. The recent 
advances do not affect any truth He taught. 
There is something fine in the serenity, the delight, 
with which the Christian watches the study of 
nature, joins in it himself, finding in it more and 
more of the thought of God. One of the leading 
scientific men of our time, who had once been con- 
fused in his faith, has said to me, " My study of 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 191 

nature made me a Christian." He wrote also, " In 
my OAvn mind, the doctrine of Christ is the sum- 
mit and crown of the organic series. It expresses 
the final result of that directed striving which 
began millions of years ago." It may be remarked 
farther that Christ gave no instruction upon lit- 
erary questions. He knew the Old Testament 
Scriptures and gave them his sanction. But He 
did not give instruction regarding authorship, 
dates, and places. He did indeed refer to Moses 
and the prophets and the Psalms, and show that 
these spoke of Him, and He pointed out things 
concerning Himself. But He did not name the 
authors of the Psalms, or explain the composition 
of the first books of the canon. There is room 
here for our highest scholarship, and when its 
work is done there will remain unanswered ques- 
tions. Yet we shall continue to find the wisdom 
which Timothy found, and to know that every 
scripture inspired of God is profitable. 

Take the teachings of Christ where you will, 
into any school, into any land, and they will keep 
their place. Light may break forth from them, 
but it will only bring out their truth. If a fire 
should burn within them, the bush will not be 
consumed. They have the permanence which is 
needed in the prolonged work which they are to 
do, if they are to help recover the world. His 



192 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

thought and intent, his precepts and promises, 
were independent of all boundaries. The new 
idea of God was final. The centuries of study 
have added nothing to it. God is love, and He is 
our Father. Worship was enjoined in the on]j 
needful way and has never been improved upon. 
The words at the well of Samaria stand as its 
highest and broadest exposition. The law was 
universal. There was no fixed series of rules, no 
tabulated directory of conduct. Life was to be 
natural, and the nature was to be love. For 
method it was taught that the rule of life is, " Not 
to be ministered unto, but to minister." He went 
so far as to add what was recorded long after his 
ascension, that " It is more blessed to give than to 
receive," — a truth which we may yet come to 
accept. We are complacent because we think 
that the rule of service, of finding our good in 
another's good, is of our invention. In a lapse 
of memory we have gone so far as to give this 
a new name. It is simply a piinciple taught by 
Christ. His statement is stronger than ours, and 
larger. For the service is to be of the heart. It 
is the second Commandment which is like the 
first. The love of man in the order of duties 
comes next to the love of God. It could not 
come first, for it has its origin and support in 
that which precedes it. It was needless to call 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 193 

it altruism when it is merely a department of 
Christianity. One of the disciples challenges all 
our thoughts of humanity in writing that he who 
does not love man does not love God. Christ's 
definition of neighbor is large. He is the man 
who needs you. He may not be of your town, 
or nation, or able to make return. He is per- 
haps lying by the roadside between Jerusalem 
and Jericho. He may even be one who has 
robbed you, and left you to die by the wayside. 
How puerile our modern notions of philanthropy 
appear when we read the New Testament ! That 
man who turned from the persecutor to the 
apostle explained the Christ law of love. It hopes, 
believes, endures ; it never fails ; it surpasses 
learning and sacrifice ; it is greater than faith and 
hope, as the tree is greater than the seed. If we 
are learning this, our teachers are Christians and 
they learned of Christ. 

His teachings concerning money disclose his 
method. He had no one rule for this. He held 
money in high esteem, as every honest man does. 
Some should have it, for its uses ; others are called 
to service in which they do not need it. A young 
man who was very rich came to Him asking after 
eternal life. His conduct in general was admira- 
ble, and drew out commendation. Two things 
were required of him, and the two stand together : 



194 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

"Go, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor; 
and come, follow me." Perhaps the man's heart 
was hampered by his wealth, and he needed to be 
freed ; or it may have been only that he was 
called to close discipleship, and, as a rich man, 
would be out of place in the little company of 
those who walked with Christ. He could hardly 
attend the Master in his walks, and become an 
apostle of his kingdom, while he was engaged 
with real estate at Perea. The young man heard 
the reply, and was offended. He had discovered 
himself, and he went away sad. Whether he re- 
turned is not told. He was disappointed, for he 
did not like the man whom he had found in him- 
self, to whom his property beyond the Jordan was 
worth more than eternal life. 

Thus Christ met one case in which money was 
involved. But to a man who had acquired wealth 
by dishonorable means Christ gave no direction 
like this. He was content that the publican should 
make fourfold restoration of that which he had 
wrongfully taken ; and for what was left, let him 
use it as a Christian. One principle covered all 
cases. On his last visit to the Temple, He saw a 
woman casting two mites into the treasury. It 
was a large gift, for she had nothing left. The 
measure of a gift is in what is kept. Christ com- 
mended her. Would He then have every one cast 



PUBPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 195 

all his property into the church treasury? By 
no means. A man has no right to throw the care 
of it upon others, or to deny himself the blessed- 
ness of giving with his own hand. Let the man 
devote himself, which includes all that he has, to 
God and his guidance, and give and keep accord- 
ing to his will. 

He gave a high value to everything which was 
done in love. I have never heard of any one who 
appreciated every favor, however small, so much 
as He. You give a cup of water to a man in his 
name, and it will appear to your credit in the Day 
of Judgment. His memory of love holds every 
loving thing we do. " Inasmuch " has become 
the chain by which reluctance is drawn into 
Chris tly service. 

The whole life of Christ was healthful, simple, 
— natural. I confess that I like the word. He 
was thorough, yet we do not call Him an extrem- 
ist, or think Him radical and visionary. He 
believed in life, and enjoyed it. He was not an 
ascetic in any degree. He did not seclude Him- 
self from men, but walked among them, and sat 
at their tables. His herald in the wilderness had 
a life of austerity. This well became him. But 
Christ began his miracles at a wedding, and saved 
the marriage feast. His works took a common 
form. He fed men with bread; He saved the 



196 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

fisher's boat; He gave the palsied man strength 
to carry home the bed he lay upon. They called 
Him the friend of publicans and sinners, and the 
name pleased Him. He always liked the truth. 
His parables interpreted common things ; spar- 
rows, grass and flowers, leaves and seed, money 
and pearls. He gave a new value to all which 
men handled. There is no great teacher who 
approaches Him in this use of common things, in 
the hallowing of the ways of men, in the ennobling 
of our daily life. He made nature a constant par- 
able, and the pursuits of men were continual 
object lessons. No thoughtful man could fail 
to be reminded of God and his ways with men. 
The world of nature and life is an illuminated 
manuscript written over with the truths of the 
Spirit. 

Plainly all this is suited to the world. There 
is nothing which belongs in one clime and not 
another. No age lessens the value of his words. 
Our advances in the principles of living are 
nothing more than learning of Him and consenting 
to live by his precepts. We do not always con- 
fess this, but it is always true. We do not 
always know this, but we could know it if we 
would. It is evident that here were wonderful 
truths with which to go into a restless, discon- 
tented, disappointed world. 



y 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 197 

I have often spoken of the teachings of Christ. 
It has not been common to regard Him as a 
Teacher. It is remarkable that wliile the Greek 
word Didaskalos is used nearly fifty times in the 
Gospels with reference to Christ, our English 
revisers only tmce translate it Teacher — when 
He Himself says, " One is your Teacher," and 
when Nicodemus calls Him " a Teacher sent from 
God." In all other places it is rendered Master, a 
definition not given in the best Lexicon. This is 
in accordance with the English use of Master, 
which is higher than that which prevails in this 
country. Yet very frequently in the Gospels 
Chiist is spoken of as teaching. " He opened 
his mouth and taught them " was true every day. 
His teaching is spoken of by that name in the 
Revised Version of the Gospels, although this 
before was rendered doctrine. After a time the 
thought of Christ as the Teacher lost its position 
in the minds of men, and his work as Saviour 
was made more prominent. The Teacher dis- 
appeared from the ranks of ministers and the 
priest came forward. This was long ago, but the 
influence has remained. In our own time, when 
some insisted that his chief work was as a teacher, 
and that to follow his instruction was all that 
any one needed, those who believed that his work 
as Saviour was of infinitely larger moment pre- 



198 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

sented Him as the Redeemer of the world, and 
denied to his instruction in itself any such value 
as was claimed for it. As we see now, the true 
way was to receive Him as Teacher, and then to 
receive the teaching. We seem to be recovering 
our ground. Our conception of his work and its 
result rests mainly upon Him and his words. 
We shall give Him his place as Teacher and 
from Him learn the Truth that He is. His teach- 
ings have the personal character of which I have 
already said so much. They are the expression 
of his thought, but more than that, of Himself, 
and his interest in them is original and strong. 
Every parable that He gave to the people was of 
greater concern to Him than to them. They 
might disregard his words, but to Him they were 
full of feeling. The Kingdom which He de- 
scribed was his own Kingdom. Yet He valued 
it for this less than for the benefits it would have 
for those whose happiness was of more account 
than his own. The Father would be pleased and 
men would be pleased and men would be blessed, 
and no desire of his was to be in comparison with 
this. 

I have spoken of the profound significance 
which He gave to " My.^' We know how much 
the word means to us. My country, my friend, 
my child, — the chief value is in the two letters 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 199 

which stand for myself. We blend our separate 
interests, and say " our," " ourselves," and we 
have the society with whose well-being our own is 
involved. One of the most suggestive sentences 
in the New Testament is in the Good Shepherd's 
words, spoken of Himself, and containing his 
whole heart, — " Rejoice with me, for I have found 
my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that 
even so there shall be joy in heaven." Even so, as 
the joy of the Shepherd who has found his sheep ; 
the one, not the ninety and nine. 

We miss the meaning of his words and the 
deeds which attended them if we do not see how 
much they meant to Him; that they were not 
things said and done in fulfilment of a mission, 
but were his own life, with its passion and desire. 
This was more evident at some times than at others. 
There was a day when the house in which He was 
most at home was darkened by death. He came at 
the call of his friends, and as He stood with them 
his sorrow was too great for control. He was 
troubled in spirit and He wept; not because this 
man only was dead, but because all men were dying 
and dead. The great soul sought the relief which 
nature gives. The Jews said, " Behold, how He 
loved him." They had no conception of the love 
which then held all sorrowing hearts in its compas- 
sion, and kept their sorrow for his own. He said in 



200 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

words which are simply like Himself, " Come unto 
Me, and I will give you rest." One may be par- 
doned for thinking of the young Buddha, and 
remembering how tenderly the way was prepared 
for him when he would walk abroad. No cripple 
should show himself out of doors lest the prince 
be grieved. No fallen leaf should remain upon 
the ground ; there should be no hint of pain and 
death. " Come unto Me all ye that labor and are 
heavy laden." The rest He gave was his own. 
He went without it that He might bestow it. I 
suppose if we were all asked what is the deepest 
and strongest teaching He gave to weary, suf- 
fering men, we should answer, "The parable of 
the prodigal son." The name is of our mak- 
ing, not his. Rutherford called it " The forlorn 
son." Both names are true. I think it might well 
be called "The recovered son." But whatever 
name best pleases us, the parable itself expresses 
on the Father's side the feeling of Him who 
taught it. Over the wandering He sorrowed in 
great sadness. The affliction in a far country lay 
upon his heart. He waited and watched for the 
return. Nay, He did not tell it all. He went 
down where the boy was, and entreated him, and 
brought him home, and gave to him the ring and 
the shoes, and another chance to live. Every line 
is full of his feeling. This is his life. He seeks 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 201 

and He saves. Not one only, but all wanderers, 
all prodigals. He takes upon his heart, and He 
clothes them at his own cost, with the best robe, 
for He has no other. Every prodigal is called and 
shall be welcomed. Plis arms are strong enough, 
his heart is large enough, to hold every one of 
them. He is willing to be lifted up from the 
earth, if He may draw all men to Himself. The 
reason of his delight is in Himself, and it speaks 
in the same two letters — " This my son." 

In all his life Christ is the reality. He does not 
declare it or represent it. He is the real. He is 
divine wisdom and love. We have the verities 
when we have Him. They show themselves, not 
becoming, but coming where they can be known 
of men. They are substantial and permanent. 
They are not handled, although the forms they 
assume may be touched. Christ was continually 
presenting the reality, and letting it be seen in 
contrast with that which had borne the name. 
One day men spoke to Him of the manna, and 
called it bread from heaven. He replied that was 
not real bread. It seemed so to your fathers, but 
bread itself is very different from that. "My 
Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. I 
am the bread of life." It is as if He had said, 
" The manna is an imitation." Again He spoke 
of the vine, Vines were to be seen everywhere ; 



202 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

possibly they ran over the window of the room 
where He was, or climbed beside the outer door. 
These are not real, He said, they are illustrations ; 
they are like the carvings on the wall and about 
the pillars. " I am the true vine." The purpose 
of a vine He alone could fulfil. The grapes men 
plucked might indeed be refreshing. But He 
would give the true refreshment which the souls 
of men could receive. The sun was in the heav- 
ens, but He was the true light. " I am the Truth," 
He said. He was "full of grace and truth." 
" Grace and truth came " by Him. But there was 
more than this. He was more than true, even 
" the Truth." He said that He did not know the 
day or the hour when the Son of Man should 
come. That was a matter of knowledge which 
here He did not need to have. But the coming 
itself, the truth within the time. He knew. He 
said, " I will come again." "• Heaven and earth 
shall pass away, but my word shall not pass away." 
The distinction between teaching the truth and 
being the Truth is not one of words. He meant 
to assert the completeness of his being, its suf- 
ficiency, its finality. It was not a representation, 
but that which other things represented. He 
would have approved the words written long after- 
ward by one of his friends, '' The things which 
are seen are temporal ; but the things which are 



y 



PUBPOSE AND METHOD OF CHBIST 203 

not seen are eternal." Truth is spiritual. The 
true things are everlasting. It is only when we 
keep this in mind that we understand Him. The 
truth which God is stands in Him, that it may do 
the work of God. It does not throw off a portion 
of itself and give this a man's form, and name. It 
reveals itself, and there is no break between the 
truth here and that which is beyond our sight. It 
has been well said that " you cannot draw a fence 
through the great ocean of infinity." You can- 
not divide the truth. We may attempt this by 
our definitions, but it must always fail. We are 
fortunate if we are not drowned in the effort to 
set the posts ! Truth is one and eternal ! " I 
am the Truth," He said. 

His life becomes simple when we receive his 
own account of Himself, and see that He is con- 
trolled by the life which He is. " I am the Life," 
He said. " I give eternal life." There is but one 
life. It took his Personality with it, and around 
it, so far as this was possible. He lived therefore 
in two worlds ; or, rather, He lived in both parts 
of the one world, in the seen and the unseen. 
There is no line between them in his thought. 
He lived among men, sat at their table, sailed 
in their boat, rested in their tomb. He talked 
with men, blessed their children, filled their nets. 
This was evident and actual. Yet He told them 



204 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

this : " The Son can do nothing of Himself, but 
what He seeth the Father doing ; for what things 
soever He doeth, these the Son also doeth in like 
manner." If once we can receive such words as 
these, and not be offended in them, we shall know 
that here is the presence of the Truth which is 
recalling and regaining the world. 

How very simple the works of Christ become 
in the presence of his reality ! The most strik- 
ing of them we call miracles, which is a poor and 
misleading name. They are described as " signs," 
and this suggests their character. They were 
works performed for the profit of men. But they 
did more than secure the immediate advantage, 
for they bore witness to the power which wrought 
them and was not exhausted. As they are often 
regarded, they lack the true element, for the 
power does not begin nor the result end as we 
suppose. Each sign comes out of the past and 
is the beginning of a series of benefits to be given 
and received. In each one He strives to get such 
hold upon a man that He can help him thoroughly, 
and in any world, and forever. He could always 
do more and greater things. The works bear 
the marks of self-restraint. Why was there any 
pause ? They were entirely natural to Him, be- 
cause He was in no wise limited by the regula- 
tions of the world. He was spirit and life, and 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 205 

things and forces must consent to his control. 
Physical nature was under the power of the Spirit. 
It had been so in the creation and always after- 
ward. It was of importance then, as it is to-day, 
that this should be asserted. Men needed to 
know their independence of the world. They 
needed to see about them, and to feel within 
them, a power greater than that which prevailed 
in the course of nature. Even if they were 
obliged for a time to submit to the forces around 
them, it was well to feel that they might be- 
come free. Men had been known to worship the 
forms and powers of nature. It resulted in evil. 
The best way to break up this custom was to 
show the subjection of these divinities of the air 
and the sea. Here was one who could govern 
them, and He spoke in the name of God. It was 
an advance for men to find themselves greater 
than their divinities, because they were spirit. 
This had been said before, but Christ told it 
again, and repeatedly, and in many ways, that 
men might see the greater power, and seeing it in 
Him find it in themselves. Because He belonged 
to both worlds, especially to the world of the 
Spirit, all his works were simple, and readily 
performed. They were signs of his own nature. 
They were samples, specimens, of the real work 
which He was to do. They were his assurance 



206 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

of a time when there would be no men blind, or 
lame, or dead. If the small acts convinced them 
of his truth they could trust Him for the more 
important works which were needed, which should 
entirely deliver men from the world and the flesh 
into the liberty of the sons of God. The words 
of the Gospel are thorough and vigorous. "As 
many as received Him, to them gave He the right 
to become children of God, even to them that be- 
lieve on his name ; which were born, not of blood, 
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, 
but of God." This was to be here. The two 
worlds were together, the world of the seen and 
of the unseen ; or, in terms which were afterward 
familiar, the world of nature and of grace. 

A miracle comes from the influence of the spir- 
itual world, when it is brought to bear upon the 
world of things. It has been said that it " stands 
for the mystery of human existence," and is " the 
symbol of the preeminence of spirit over nature." 
Christ would have preferred to have men know 
Him without these signs ; for spiritual discern- 
ment was higher. Yet it is doubtful if they 
could have known Him but for such works as 
arrested their attention, and made them believe 
that He was from God. They believed because 
of the things they saw, though these were of 
less account than his own Truth. " Believe Me 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 207 

that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me ; 
or else believe Me for the very works' sake." 
The miracles were on a lower plane of evidence 
than the Truth to which they gave witness, but 
they were effective. How much higher our Lord 
rated his work upon the spirit is shown in a very 
striking way in the startling assurance He gave 
on his last night — " He that believeth on Me, 
the works that I do shall he do also ; and greater 
works than these shall he do." He meant that 
to open the eyes of a man so that he should see 
his father was less than to give him the vision 
of God ; that to enable a man to walk the streets 
was less than to persuade him to walk with God ; 
that even to raise one from the dead was less than 
bringing a man into the eternal life of the Spirit. 
So far from encouraging men to wonder at his 
power in the world, He taught that they should 
do works of surpassing value. 

He required faith. This was not needed for a 
common miracle. But common miracles He did 
not care to work, unless by means of them He 
could find the soul and make it whole. Tliis 
needed the soul's consent, and this was faith. He 
was not here to be admired, but to be known. 
He did not care to give a benefit which could 
be acquired in some other way, and would come 
to an end. Every work of mercy was, in his 



208 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

intent, the seed of another, and this process was 
to be endless. I think that we make less account 
of Christ's miracles than has been made at other 
times. The attention has been more upon Him 
and the truths wliich He taught. Still, we ought 
to regard liis works carefully ; not with a view to 
their repetition, but as the disclosure of his 
spiritual place and dominion. We could prove his 
acts by surpassing them. Those who have done 
the " greater works " of which He spoke appear 
to have no trouble with the miracles of the 
New Testament. Perhaps confidence in ourselves 
would have been fairer than our doubt of Him. 
Many are the wonderful works which are men- 
tioned, though not all are told, and they are in 
entire keeping with his words. They were so 
numerous that it was thought needless to make 
the record of them. Thirty years afterward they 
stood before the memory of men who saw them 
like a forest of trees one cannot think of count- 
ing. The latest of the writers went so far as to 
say that if all the things which Jesus had done 
should be written, he supposed that the world 
itself would not contain the books. Reading the 
memoirs as one reads any book, it is more than 
difficult to regard these unnumbered signs as 
the invention of such men as were his friends, 
and gave their life to Him whom they knew 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CRBIST 209 

as Truth; who told what they saw and heard, 
as one of them said, that others might have 
fellowship with them. Such signs need very- 
clear evidence, and we should question the 
witnesses, their truthfulness and intelligence. 
This is the part of prudence. But when all the 
testimony is given which the nature of the case 
makes possible, and when the evidence is sure 
enough to be accepted in regard to events less 
unusual, something better than denial, or incre- 
dulity, may fairly be asked of us. We have 
come to believe too many things which at first 
seemed beyond belief to be hastily turned from 
anything which brings to us reasonable creden- 
tials. There have been too many surprises in 
our time to warrant a careless unbelief. The 
scientific method and spirit are alone proper. 
Look, question, decide, search, find, determine. 
To settle it beforehand with ourselves that cer- 
tain things cannot be done is not the road to 
knowledge. The time for that conceit has gone 
by. The unusual is not of necessity the difficult. 
The quality of a miracle is in its strangeness, not 
in the force which it needs. It requires no more 
of wisdom or skill than a hundred things to which 
we are accustomed. If it needs our effort to be- 
lieve, it should need effort to rule the miracle 
out of the works of God. It is hard to believe, 



210 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRTST 

when one thinks upon it, that the Almighty has 
done his last work, and that thenceforth all is 
repetition ; that the world, and the universe, are 
but a mechanism, which is to pursue only its 
unvarying round. Who shall say that God has 
thus mortgaged Himself to his past, and denied 
Himself the pleasure of doing a new thing, of 
using a new method, of meeting any event of life 
in any way which He chooses ? To deny the 
possibility of a miracle is strangely to limit the 
Almighty. We talk of the laws of nature as if 
they were statutes. Nature does not legislate. 
What we thus name laws are but the Creator's 
methods, and these are forces, not fetters. Be 
very sure that when the Maker of heaven and 
earth wishes to work in a new way He will do it. 
It is at great times, at some eventful point, that 
history has the record of such variation from his 
custom. The creation was new. Strange works 
attended the delivery of Israel from Egypt. They 
marked the coming of the Lord and the coming 
of his Kingdom. They were not more grand or 
more divine than the events they stood among. 

I have lingered upon the works of Christ longer 
than I intended. I leave them as a part of the 
fourfold record of his life. The story is simply 
told, as if the writers had long since ceased to 
be surprised by them. In the thirty years which 



PUBPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 211 

preceded the writing they had come to know 
Him better, and their increased knowledge shows 
itself in their steadiness of mind and their as- 
sured confidence. Long and full of events were 
the years between the day when St. John took 
the mother of Jesus to his home, and the day 
when as an old man he wrote out his remem- 
brance of One who loved him. Time may have 
had something to do with the quietness and 
naturalness of the narrations of the three years 
which Jesus spent among men, going about doing 
good. 

The works are incidents in the life. They be- 
long in a life which moves with even flow from 
the beginning. Let them be judged in their 
place, and with the company they keep; by the 
reason for them and the result from them. The 
works confirm his authority and establish his 
teaching. They are the signs of larger gifts. 

Before we leave this simple account of the life 
of Christ it is necessary that we dwell for a mo- 
ment upon two facts which have a place of impor- 
tance in his teaching. The first is prayer. It is 
true that this did not begin with Him. It is em- 
bodied in the entire system of religion which is 
taught in the Bible. He found it. He learned 
it in his home at Nazareth, He taught his dis- 
ciples to find comfort and strength in it. There 



212 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHBI8T 

were times when He spent a whole night in 
prayer. It is clear that He depended upon it. 
It is equally clear that He expected his apostles 
to depend upon it. He would not have made 
them his messengers save as He knew that they 
would pray, and in prayer obtain the grace and 
light they needed. But what was prayer as He 
taught it ? It was a spiritual act. It was the in- 
tercourse of the soul with God. There was asking, 
but there was much more. There was the being 
consciously in the presence of God. The voice 
presents requests ; but there is more than requests. 
If I may quote my own words, " The better part 
of prayer is not the asking, but the kneeling where 
we can ask, the resting there, the stopping there, 
drawing out the willing moments in heavenly 
communion with God, within the closet, with 
the night changed into the brightness of the day 
by the light of Him who all the night was in 
prayer to God." Surely, the soul would have 
strength which should thus wait at the source of 
strength. 

Requests are made and answered ; sometimes 
as we wish, and sometimes with changes and de- 
lays. But there is no delay in blessing the soul 
which, at leisure from itself, waits with God; 
and He knew that with it men could be trusted to 
do all which He would have them do. This is an 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 213 

essential part of his teaching, and cannot be taken 
from the truth and duty which He gave. 

More things are wrought by prayer 

Than this world dreams of ; for what were men, 

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 

Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? 

For so the whole round earth is every way 

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 

The second fact to which allusion was made is 
the Sabbath. This also did not begin with Him. 
It is conspicuous in the religious life of his people, 
from a time before the giving of the Law on Siani. 
He found the day, and kept it holy when a boy 
in Nazareth, and in the years which brought Him 
on to manhood. When He began his teaching 
the day which was made for man had become 
oppressive. The rules and customs which had 
gathered about it would have seemed ludicrous 
had they not been so heavy a burden at a time 
which was meant for gladness. He did not abol- 
ish the day, or release men from a sacred regard 
for it. But He set the day free. He delivered 
it, and restored it to its own meaning. In all 
this He made it plain that He did not intend 
to do away with the Sabbath. A man does not 
restore a building which he intends in a few days 
to destroy. The changes which Christ wrought 
are a witness to his purpose to have the day kept 



214 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

after its original design. Under the direction of 
his apostles the first day of the week took the 
place of the seventh, and was the day of sacred 
delight, the "sweet day of rest," the weekly 
Easter with its celebration of the Resurrection of 
Christ. It may be regarded, then, as having a 
fixed place in the teaching of Christ. It is to be 
a day of rejoicing. We are released from work ; 
we are set free from the round of daily duties, 
that the soul may have its opportunity, and that 
we may quietly foster and enjoy our faith and 
love in worship, in meditation, in communion, 
in all which makes us more spiritual, more Divine. 
This is Christ's intent. It is obvious that the 
more nearly we can keep the day according to his 
desire the richer its hours will be ; the closer our 
walk with God, the firmer our purpose to be like 
Him ; the more nearly perfect our peace and joy, 
the sanctity of our spirit, the divinity of our life. 
It was in the knowledge of Himself as the 
Truth, as belonging in two worlds, that we have 
the explanation of his life. It is in this that 
its peculiar value consists. It is vain to compare 
Him with others who have lived, and to find re- 
semblances to his teachings and his works. The 
more resemblances of this kind which we can dis- 
cover the better is it for the world. But He stands 
alone, in his own consciousness, and in his constant 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 215 

teaching, and in the purpose of his life as He de- 
clared it. He alone lives as the embodiment of 
the love which God is. His first relation is with 
God, and this is never changed. Keeping this, He 
comes really into the world, that the love which 
He is may become life for men. It is thus that 
He teaches and helps ; thus that he gives his life 
— "I have power to lay it down, and I have power 
to take it again." It is thus that He claims all 
sheep, all sinners, as his own, and seeks them 
that He may save them; thus that He goes into 
the far country that He may bring home the prod- 
igal, his own prodigal. All this God would do. 
It belongs in our idea of God. It is in his Son 
that He does it. The great desire, full of pity and 
love, the great longing for his own ; the Divine 
goodness and grace which encircle the earth and 
sweep through the ages ; the almightiness which 
is informed with compassion, and cannot rest, 
but will have its own, — all the heart of God 
finds men where they are, and is faithful to love, 
mighty to save. " He will abundantly pardon." 
But the heart of God among men bears the name 
which was given by the angel — " Jesus ; " and 
the other, which is " God with us." We are out 
of the range of philosophy. This is Truth. He 
does not simply reveal God. He is really the 
Love of God. 



216 PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 

Of course the world did not receive Him. He 
was despised and rejected by those who saw only 
their own disappointment in Him. At last He 
was crucified. But He said repeatedly that He 
should not be holden of death. He was the 
stronger. On the third day He appeared among 
men. They saw Him and knew that it was He. 
Many saw Him. The faith which had been 
rudely shaken was quickly restored. For a few 
weeks He remained among his friends, then He 
returned into the skies. The account is given 
with brevity and simplicity. Upon the fact of the 
Resurrection his disciples rested their lives and 
based their ministry. They lived in the knowledge 
of it, and many sealed their devotion with their 
lives. To the closing events of Christ's life his 
disciples attached the chief significance. These 
stand highest in their thought. They preached 
them as the centre and heart of their message to the 
world. It is evident that there was a profound 
meaning in the death of the Truth and the Life. 
I know that Life and Truth cannot die. But the 
body in which they lived could die. For Him, 
then, to consent to be obedient to death, when He 
could have avoided it easily, was a fact before 
which it becomes us to be still. It is clear from liis 
own teaching that He intended to find his sheep 
and his sons by the way of the cross. This He 



PURPOSE AND METHOD OF CHRIST 217 

has done. This was the understanding of the 
apostles, and by this rule they ordered their min- 
istry, and gained the world for Him. As often as 
we contemplate the close of his life, let us find the 
meaning of it in Himself; not in the cross, but 
in the Truth which uses it. 
I am the Truth, He said. 



V 

THE CAUSE OF CHRIST IN THE HANDS OF MEN 



THE CAUSE OF CHRIST IN THE 
HANDS OF MEN 



I HAVE written at length of the Person in 
whom the Creator and Father of men seeks to 
recall them to their true life ; to give them again 
of his own life. Has his purpose been accom- 
plished? As we advance, and see Him in the 
world and mark his influence, is it clear that 
the Divine thought is being fulfilled ? While his 
work is not completed at any point, it has gone 
far enough for an intelligent opinion of its merit 
and promise. It is not possible to see all that He 
has done, because much of it is in the hearts of 
men, in their character, their motives and inten- 
tions, their inclinations and affections, and the 
disclosure of these is imperfect. We know what 
He has done for us, and in some measure what 
He has done for others. With the necessary 
limitation of our knowledge, there is abundant 
and conclusive evidence regarding the effect of 
Christianity upon men; upon society and its 
institutions; upon literature, science, art; upon 



222 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

the home and the school ; upon the woman and 
the child ; upon charity and all the virtues ; upon 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In 
tracing the coui-se of his life upon the earth we 
are to keep always in mind the Personality of 
Christ. It was this which He gave to the world 
— Himself. " I am " stands before his teaching 
and the works which attended it. He was in the 
gifts which He bestowed. Buddhism could live 
without Buddha. Christianity is impossible with- 
out Christ. He is the breath, the soul, the life, 
of the truth. He is the Love which loves men 
into love. 

The men whom He called to be disciples and 
then Apostles were held to Him by personal 
devotion. The readiness with which they left all 
to follow Him is a witness to the power which 
was his. He had nothing to offer them of earthly 
reward ; He insisted upon their humility ; He 
told them that they could not be his disciples 
unless they denied themselves, and took up their 
cross ; He spoke to them of his own death, and of 
the tribulation they would have in the world ; at 
last He gave Himself to the cross, and died, and 
was entombed. But they were not moved from 
Him, save one, who in a "desperate self-respect" 
fled from the world where there seemed to be no 
place for him. Confused they were, the eleven 



CAUSE OF CHBIST IN HANDS OF MEN 223 

men who were the disciples ; disappointed, deso- 
late, stricken ; but they kept their faith in Him 
and waited for that which was to come. What 
held them ? The Love which drew them. It was 
a wonderful power which Christ had. I do not 
call it supernatural, for it was of Himself. He 
called them and there was power in his words. 
The voice, the look, the whole presence, drew 
them to Him. They were not poor men, weak 
men ; but men well-to-do, substantial citizens of 
the North country, who proved afterward that 
they could teach their own people and the world ; 
and their word has gone out into all the earth. 
Nothing in our libraries is so precious as their 
writings. They could bear all things, even to 
martyrdom, and die in exultation, and leave their 
names for adoration. It was the perfect Love 
which called them ; the Love which is the strong- 
est, Divinest thing known in heaven, and which 
was incarnate in Him. It attracted, persuaded, 
compelled, the men whose hearts it reached, whose 
love could recognize the eternal Love and be 
taken into it and held there, so that the power of 
the Divine Love should be around them, keeping 
and guiding; inspiring them for the life of love 
which was to follow liis, and be his and theirs. 
If I knew what the perfect Love is I could 
better tell how it found these hearts which 



224 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

Love had made, and pleased itself and them. 
Were they not of one nature with Him who came 
to their boats, and filled their nets, and made 
them fishers of men ? They loved because they 
were first loved. The Love of Christ constrained 
them. It made them the men whom Christ 
needed, whom the Love of God needed, for a 
ministry which must begin and end in love. We 
like the answer of these men to the call of Christ. 
It was so hearty, and simple, and trusting ; not 
hindered by question, or despoiled by delay. "And 
He called them. And they immediately left the 
ship and their father, and followed Him." It was 
great confidence in Him. But this is not more 
to be admired than his confidence in them. 

Let us think of the meaning of his life ; of the 
magnificent purpose and expectation in which He 
was to give his life, to be lifted up that He 
might draw all men to Himself. Yet after his 
crucifixion He went no more among strangers, 
and soon He returned to heaven. Who were to 
take up his ministry and carry it through the 
lands which had not heard his name? These 
men, who for a few months had walked with Him 
and learned of Him, — by these his word and 
work were to be preserved and extended till every 
man should hear of Him. They knew Him, and 
they were ready to do anything at his bidding. 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 225 

He knew them and He trusted all to them. I 
think this is the largest instance of faith in the 
history of the world. If they failed Him, his 
cause was at an end. The cross would be the 
headstone at its grave. He knew they would not 
fail Him, for his love held their hearts. I think 
of Nelson's signal as the battle of Trafalgar was 
to begin — " England confides that ev^ry man 
will do his duty." — "I have no signal for con- 
fides," the officer said. " May I not say expects ? " 
Nelson consented, but his own word was the 
better, with more heart in it, — " England con- 
fides." The words express as well as words can, 
fittingly, beautifully, the thought of Christ when 
his hour had come. He confided that every man 
would do his duty. Every man did. It is a tes- 
timony to them, but even more to Him. It was 
well written by one who joined them — " The 
greatest is love." 

After his resurrection, and a little time before 
his withdrawal from these disciples, Christ met 
seven of them by the sea of Galilee, where He 
helped them fill the nets which all the night had 
been spread in vain, and gave them a lesson in 
trust which could not be forgotten. When He 
had given them to eat of fish which had not been 
brought in their net, — the one hundred and fifty- 
fourth, — He asked one of the little group, who 



226 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

had been in some degree a leader among them, if 
he loved Him. Three times He asked. He was 
asking all the men through one. It was the ques- 
tion of the future. Everything depended upon 
the answer. There was nothing to hold them but 
Love, their love living in his. The reply contented 
Him, and He ordained them to the care of his 
sheep and lambs ; for He was the Good Shepherd, 
and a shepherd King, as his ancestor had been. 
After this He was with them in Jerusalem where 
He bade them wait till they should receive power ; 
for they were to be witnesses to Him '' in Jeru- 
salem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto 
the uttermost part of the earth." It was a con- 
fidence in the truth, and in these men whom He 
loved, which was like Himself. At last He led 
them to the mount called Olivet, and from there 
ascended to the glory which He had before the 
world was. The end was in keeping with the 
beginning. 

The friends returned to the city, as they had 
been told to do. They were but few in number, 
and were unnoticed. They would have been 
oppressed with a strange loneliness but for the 
assurance that He would be with them still. He 
would be close enough to help them, while they 
would be allowed a true liberty. They had the 
promise of the Holy Spirit whom He would send. 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 227 

They waited by themselves, living over the three 
years of their discipleship, and the last days of 
sadness and triumph. In an upper room, where 
their home was for a time, they turned their 
minds heavenward and prayed for the power 
from above. They needed it. There were a few 
who shared their hope, and among these was 
" Mary, the mother of Jesus," " blessed among 
women." Think on the course of the world 
since that time ! Has there ever been gathered 
council or congress which, for dignity and solem- 
nity, could compare with that ? They waited. 
It was like a ship with her sails set, watching for 
the breeze. The world was waiting for the com- 
ing power, though it knew it not. It was waiting 
for those unregarded men — men of faith, with 
a history ; men firm by nature and training ; 
holding to the ancestral belief and hope ; mem- 
bers of a religious nation. They had not been 
asked to change their faith, and they were not to 
ask their countrymen. Judaism had not pro- 
duced Christianity, but it was fulfilled in it. The 
Gentile religions, which were as little able to 
produce the new faith as thistles to bear figs, 
were to part with all which was untrue and to 
receive the Truth which was from heaven. 
Christ was Himself, and there was no one be- 
fore Him who was like Him, as there has been 



228 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

no one after Him. These Jews who had become 
Christians were to announce that the Messiah 
had come. He was not the desire of the world, 
but He was infinitely more. This was to be said 
everywhere, beginning at Jerusalem where He 
had been crucified. The Truth must go forth 
from the Cross. Out from that narrow door 
which was not far from Calvary was to issue the 
Love of God, to seek and find its own. The 
Kingdom of heaven was in that upper room, wait- 
ing. The disciples were indeed in the presence of 
the King, who had called them friends. They had 
no chief, save as strength of character asserted 
itself. They were not organized, save as a globe 
stands about its centre. They had no forms, but 
the form of spirit and of truth. The precepts of 
their Teacher were their laws, and these could 
never lose control. They had Christ, and his 
Love held their love, and what God had joined 
together could not be put asunder. 

Their time came. For designation it is called 
the Day of Pentecost, the time of the first 
fruits, and the name was well chosen ; but Pente- 
cost had come a thousand times before, and this 
day alone is remembered. Strange things were 
seen and heard in Jerusalem. The promised 
power descended upon the disciples and those 
who were with them. It was a spiritual power, 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 229 

giving vigor to their minds and hearts, and ena- 
bling them to speak with a wisdom and force 
which made their words effective among the lis- 
tenei-s. This was entirely simple, for it was the 
gift of the Spirit who is God to the kindred 
spirit who is man. In this power the disciples 
preached. The result was that many, being per- 
suaded and enabled by the Spirit, believed the 
Word which was preached ; three thousand in 
one day, and others afterward. It was the first 
attempt of Christianity to get into the world and 
become its life, and it was signally successful. 
This was well called "Power from on high." 
Under its influence " the Lord added to them 
day by day those that were saved " — for this was 
the designation given them. It was in this form 
of the Holy Spirit that Christ was henceforth to 
be with his disciples. It was expedient that Jesus 
of Nazareth should go away. There was need of 
a presence more widely diffused, in all places at 
all times, which could readily enter the spirit of 
man and abide there, and direct his thoughts and 
enlarge his life. They had now the completion of 
the baptismal creed and confession — the Father, 
the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The order is plainly 
declared in the New Testament. First the eternal 
Father whom no man hath seen ; then the Son in 
whom God is revealed to men ; then the Holy 



230 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

Spirit in whom the Son is revealed to the world ; 
and there is one God. I do not enter upon the 
theological bearing of these truths. The mission 
of the Holy Spirit is definitely set forth. It con- 
nects itself immediately with the work of Christ, 
and so with the Love of the Father. It is neces- 
sary at this point that the words of Christ 
concerning the Holy Spirit should be carefully 
marked — " When the Comforter is come, whom I 
will send unto you from the Father, even the 
Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, 
He shall bear witness of Me." " He shall guide 
you into all the truth." " He shall glorify Me, 
for He shall take of Mine, and shall declare it 
unto you." " He shall teach you all things, and 
bring to your remembrance all that I said unto 
you." It is evident, therefore, that this Divine 
Presence is to carry forward the Love of the 
Father and the mission of Christ in which that 
Love is fulfilled. The Holy Spirit is to be in 
men, the presence of God, the Love of the Son 
of God, quickening and renewing their hearts, 
creating them anew with a new life. Hence we 
have the strong words of the chief Apostle : " As 
many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are 
sons of God." This is the day of the Holy 
Spirit. 

Thus at Pentecost men received life. They 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 231 

came fully under the first Commandment, and 
under the second, for every man's need became 
another's opportunity. There was a quick test. 
None lacked, for none owned. Many tongues 
were heard, but they spoke in the one language 
of brotherhood. 

The new gift went farther. It was to be help- 
ful at once. One of the Apostles, who had come 
to the knowledge of his power in preaching, 
attempted his first independent sign, that which 
we ineffectively call a miracle. Some experience 
had been granted him before, in an apprentice 
way, but he was now to work by himself. A man 
lame from his birth lay at the Beautiful Gate of 
the Temple, and he looked, as his wont was, upon 
this disciple and another Galilean, that he might 
receive alms. The Apostle seized and held him 
with his eyes, raising the confidence which he was 
to disappoint. " I have no silver and gold," he 
said, " but I will give you what I have." This 
was one of the marks of the new faith. Its min- 
isters made no pretence and offered no excuse. 
What they did not have was of no use to them or 
to the world. Taking the cripple by the hand, he 
lifted him, and for the first time the man stood 
upon his feet. The surgeon who reported the 
case said that his feet and ankle-bones received 
strength. Things looked well for the new cause. 



232 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

One thing was wanting, and that was soon sup- 
pUed, when Herod slew an Apostle with a sword, 
and proposed to send another to the same fate. 
Earlier than this, a man who had been called to 
office in the society was stoned for his boldness 
in the faith. The cause was now well on its way. 
Could it continue? As long as those who be- 
lieved in it remained true. 

But it had the world to gain. The world knew 
nothing of it ; or, knowing, was hostile to it. The 
Jews had not swerved from their opposition, 
neither the leaders nor the people. Persecution 
grew more severe. In this is a sign of the force 
in the new faith. Strange that all the authority 
which remained to the nation was turned against 
the carpenter's son ! The Nazarene had made Him- 
self feared in high places, and He had not lifted 
a hand, and only one of his followers had drawn 
a sword. Here was a growing influence which 
could not be reasoned down, and thus far there 
had been no force which could resist it. Observe 
its vitality and the method of it, and think what 
this signifies. It was a notable event when from 
its enemies came its stoutest friend. He was not 
of Jerusalem, which was in his favor. Galilee 
gave the first Apostles. This man came even 
farther. The comparative largeness of provincial 
life was on his side. He* had grown up among 



y 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 233 

men. He was a Roman, and this gave him posi- 
tion and daring. He was religious, and his relig- 
ion was a reality. He was a Jew, and loving his 
people he sprang to the defence of the poor rem- 
nant of their liberty. Fearless, determined, ag- 
gressive, he found his passion enlarged as he saw 
a good man stoned, who died in triumph under 
the open heaven. He kept the clothes of the 
murderers, and when they resumed them he took 
up their work. He could do nothing in a small 
way. He was mad exceedingly, and he thought 
the cause justified his violence. It is some wit- 
ness to the strength of the Nazarene, as He was 
described, that He made Saul of Tarsus angry 
through his whole being. His madness is as good 
as a day's miracles, for evidence. The conver- 
sion of the High Priest would have meant less. 
He consented to be taught, and to be enrolled as 
a disciple. The name he had hated became at 
once his glory. He waited that he might find him- 
self. He meditated in Arabia where only God 
could teach him. He learned from those who had 
walked with the Master of his life and his word. 
He confirmed his faith, we may suppose, by visit- 
ing the places where the Lord had suffered and 
died. He promptly and publicly declared him- 
self a believer in the risen Lord, and then abandon- 
ing his profession went forth to be the preacher. 



234 CAUSE OF CHEIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

The more he taught the more he believed. As 
there is nothing succeeds like success, so there is 
nothing believes like belief. A zeal for Christ 
possessed him, greater even than his madness had 
been. He cared for nothing beside. He was ab- 
sorbed in his devotion. His feeling was long 
afterward expressed by his Moravian friend : " I 
have one passion, and it is He, He only." He 
went to his own people. He went beyond them 
to the excluded nations. The door for this was 
opened by a Divine hand when the word was car- 
ried by another Apostle to a Roman soldier at 
Cesarea who had commended himself by his 
prayers and gifts. Then the work spread. Men 
believed wherever they heard. They were called 
and called out, and by this word were known. 
We have translated it, which is a pity. The faith 
was taking on more of form. The adjective 
which had described the Teacher became a proper 
name, and those who belonged to Him were called 
after it, not by any appointment, but for con- 
venience. They were called ^Christians as their 
Master was Christ. The name given by others 
grew in favor. The Apostles went through their 
own land and beyond it. St. Paul went far abroad, 
carrying the Good News of God, as the Word 
came to be described. Churches were formed of 
Jews and Gentiles, and were fostered with apos- 



y 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 235 

tolic care. St. Paul visited them in repeated 
journeys, and when absent wrote to them. His 
letters make a large and important part of the 
early and the later Christian literature. They 
were letters, not doctrinal treatises. They estab- 
lished no schedule of belief, after the manner of 
later times. He taught doctrine, indeed, but not 
a system. All his letters enforced the Christian 
teaching. He wrote one letter which is in the 
largest sense theological, and which is a strong 
statement of his belief. This was to a church 
which he had not visited, which needed a formal 
statement of the Christian faith that should serve 
as a constitution at Rome, and wherever the new 
church at Rome had influence. This letter by 
no means contents itself with belief, but makes 
conduct of essential importance. In his letters 
St. Paul stated in his own terms that which 
he had learned, with confirmation out of philos- 
ophy, and history, and experience. He added 
nothing to the teaching of the Master. He did 
not teach by parable, but in a more immediate 
and direct manner. That he gave form to the 
teaching of Christ is evident ; but they are mis- 
taken who think he altered the teaching itself. 
He expanded the central teaching of Christ, that 
He had come to seek and to save that which was 
lost; and he defined the loss, and the seeking, 



236 CAUSE OF CHRIST JiV HANDS OF MEN 

and the saving. He taught in what way and for 
what reasons the Good Shepherd gave his life 
for the sheep. He declared the resurrection of 
the dead in words which remain the clearest 
exposition of Immortality. He exalted love and 
enforced it in the finest sentences ever written 
concerning it. One phrase has become in our 
time almost a definition. Not content with such 
themes, he guided the churches in their affairs, 
and in the behavior of their members. There 
was need of this, for many had brought the vices 
of their old religion into the new faith. They 
needed rebuke, warning, entreaty, if any good 
was to come to them under their new name, 
and it was to be commended by their lives. The 
best proof of Christianity must be the lives of 
those whom it controls. It must show its power 
to save by saving, its ability to create by creating. 
The teacher of this faith can never attach too 
much importance to the conduct of those who 
hold it. This is not a large fraction of life: 
it is the whole. The act of the will is as real as 
the act of the hand. This is not to be forced 
for the sake of evidence ; but the religion is to be 
unhindered and obeyed. Let it show what it can 
do. Some of the things about which the Apostle 
wrote may seem small for a man to be concerned 
with who more than any other had the Kingdom of 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 237 

God in his charge. But it is the peculiarity of 
the Kingdom of God, that it concerns itself with 
small things, with unimportant men, and with the 
actions which are their character. It is a mark 
of Christianity that it makes the man of large 
moment, and if the man then his conduct. Let 
us remember the words of the herald of the King- 
dom : " He that hath two coats, let him impart to 
him that hath none ; and he that hath food, let 
him do likewise." " Extort no more than that 
which is appointed you." There is a majesty in 
St. Paul's great pages ; but I mark also the divin- 
ity of his small sentences whereby he seeks to 
pereuade men to live in truth, and purity, and 
charity. He had learned the mind of Christ. 
This was his claim for himself, and he had need to 
assert it, for his right to preach was not unchal- 
lenged. That he had learned some things of St. 
Peter, and James the Lord's brother, he declared. 
But with all the force at his command he asserted 
that the Gospel which he had preached he had 
not learned of man, but had received it " by 
the revelation of Jesus Christ." It was this 
which made the tremendous energy of his life, and 
made him one of the two or three most influential 
men whom the world has known. The facts of 
the new faith, the incidents in Christ's life, the 
teaching which He gave, could be readily learned 



238 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

from his friends. It was quite as simple that the 
spirit of this should be given into his spirit by the 
Spirit of truth to which it was akin; that the 
meaning should be thus bestowed, and direction 
for the employment of the teaching, the right 
adjustment of it within itself and in the minds 
of men, and all which we mean by inspiration, 
which is entirely simple when one knows that he 
too is spirit. This did not teach him everything, 
but it did furnish him generously and truly for 
the work, the large work, which he was to do. 
It left him a free man, even under the teaching 
of the Spirit of God. Every one who prays for 
guidance prays for inspiration. When the reality 
of this is perceived, its extent offers no difficulty. 
Here was St. Paul's authority with himself and 
the world. He had not grown into the Christian 
faith. He had been stopped on his way, and with 
his consent, which was promptly given, had been 
taken up into the Way — for by this name the 
new faith was soon called. This was the place, 
this was the time, from which Christianity was 
reaching out on its mission. Let it be noted 
that Christ was directing it still. The assertion 
of this abounds in the records. 

We must not fail to ask what Christianity was 
at that time. What did St. Paul and the others 
teach ? They repeated the teaching of Christ in 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 239 

addresses and in letters. The Apostles did more 
than recite his words. They preached Christ 
Himself. They did not merely commend Him 
to the admiration of men, or his teaching to 
their belief. They preached Him. They did 
not teach a system of Christian philosophy, or 
present a scheme of Christian conduct. Every- 
thing was to be practical and thorough. Christ 
did not come to set an example in Himself, nor 
to give to the world a series of patterns. Ex- 
amples are very well in their way, but not inter- 
esting, and not very effective. In giving life 
He provided for conduct, and He sent men 
out to live and give life. They did not talk 
about Him, they presented Him. They sought 
to bring men under his control. They knew 
that if men consented to this. He would cleanse 
their hearts, inform their minds, direct their 
lives. They sought to unite each man to Him, 
vitally, spiritually, for wisdom and life. It was 
personal on both sides. Christ and the man 
were to be joined as vine and branch. 

We can come nearer. While they presented 
Christ, the Pei-son, they laid the chief stress on 
the close of his life. This held the force of all 
which was before it, yet this stood oat by itself in 
their minds. St. Paul said, *' We preach Christ 
crucified." His resurrection completed the work 



240 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

of the Cross. But it was the Cross to which they 
drew the minds of men ; to Christ, who by means 
of the Cross, in a special manner and degree, gave 
his life for the world. It was in this form that 
the life of Christ passed out among the nations. 
It is not likely that Constantine saw the Cross in 
the sky. But the early Apostles of Christianity 
saw it always before their minds, and by this 
sign they thought to conquer the world. The 
truths preached by the Apostles and believed 
by the first Christians are believed and preached 
to-day. The Christian minister of last Sunday, 
if he had missed his way to his own door, and 
had found himself in one of those early assem- 
blies of disciples, which had prolonged its meet- 
ing, would probably have left his sermon in its 
case, but could have talked with them on equal 
terms, gaining from them something of vividness, 
and giving to them something of experience, but 
concurring with them on all the truths which 
are essential to a Christian life. I wish I might 
have been that erring minister ! 

Was the world prepared to receive this new 
teaching? It needed it. The religions which 
had held the ground had lost their force, cer- 
tainly in the lands around Palestine which would 
first be reached. Think as well of these as you 
will. It cannot be very well, and their time was 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 241 

over. There was no reason why they should lin- 
ger. The characters which had been fashioned 
under the ancient faiths were not often to be ad- 
mired. At last not even the gods could have 
been respected by high-minded men. The lan- 
guage of one of our American scholars is to the 
point when he writes of the elder Cato, that he 
possessed almost every virtue not specially blessed 
by Christ, but that there was not one of the Beat- 
itudes of Christ in which he, the best of the Ro- 
mans, could have claimed a part ; and that there 
are none of the Roman divinities who possessed 
any of these virtues. To come down a hundred 
years, even Marcus Aurelius, philosopher and 
saint, who has reached renown as one of the best 
men those times can present, and because of whom 
we are bidden admire the times in which he was 
possible, " obtained the apotheosis of his profli- 
gate wife and of his dissolute colleague, building 
temples for their worship, instituting priesthoods 
in their names, and in all respects yielding them 
divine honors." It is not strange that Chris- 
tianity suffered under his rule. This has been 
termed " a tragical fact." If his religion was to 
keep its place, there was no room for the new 
faith of Judea. But the need was there. "I 
apprehend," said Vespasian, as death came close 
to him, — "I apprehend that I am going to be a 



242 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

god." Was the way then open for the Son of 
God? To find the people ready to throw off the 
forms which remained, and to accept another 
faith, coming from a Jewish province, and one 
whose history, so far as it was known, had little 
to commend it, was more than prudent men, re- 
lying on their own judgment, were entitled to 
expect. It was a bold intent, to present a re- 
ligion which forbade many things to which the 
people were accustomed, and which they held 
right and even essential ; whose spirit was char- 
ity, in that age, and whose deeds were service ; 
which made all men brethren, the children of 
one Father, who was the one God ; which ac- 
counted it profitable to give up the world for 
the soul's sake, and to lay up in heaven that 
which had been earned upon the earth ; which 
had no altars or images, and enjoined worship 
only in spirit and in truth; where priests 
would lose their ofiice and become suppliants 
for mercy by the side of the king and the slave. 
Could the attempt succeed ? The Athenian had 
graved upon one of his many altars, " To an 
unknown God." When St. Paul declared the 
Unknown, and in the same breath bore witness 
to the resurrection of his Master, the most 
courteous response he received was the promise 
to hear him at another time. If there was ever 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 243 

an apparently wild, desperate enterprise under- 
taken in the name of religion, it was in the pur- 
pose to establish through the Roman Empire the 
teaching of Christ and Him crucified. This was 
attempted. This was done. 

It is not difficult to perceive the moral deso- 
lation of the period when Christianity first vent- 
ured abroad. Historians have not measured their 
words, and excess is easy. But there can be no 
doubt of the social and moral ruin which was 
everywhere to be found. In the words of Pro- 
fessor Jowett, "To see the world in its worst 
estate we turn to the age of the satirists and of 
Tacitus, when all the different streams of evil, 
coming from East, West, North, South, the vices 
of barbarism and the vices of civilization, rem- 
nants of ancient cults, and the latest refinements 
of luxury and impurity, met and commingled on 
the banks of the Tiber." I have said enough to 
those who know more. Of course there were 
good men and women. There were sincere 
worshippers. There were defenders of the faith, 
and even trials for heresy. Anaxagoras was 
"banished for suggesting that the god Helios 
was a mass of molten iron." There was relig- 
ion which had control of certain lives. Indeed, 
the very word religion suggests a belief in unseen 
powers, and with this points of contact might be 



244 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

found. There may have been sincerity even in 
persecution, as there was when Saul of Tarsus 
was on the other side. The ethical standards 
were different from ours and lower than they 
have since become. Let all this be acknowledged, 
and the extreme difficulty of passing just judg- 
ment on the religion of another nation. We sel- 
dom do it on the religion of another man, even. 
Still, making all allowances, it was a very un- 
promising field for missionary effort. But upon 
it the young faith was to enter. The reasons of 
its triumph have been stated by Gibbon, and 
Merivale, and others, and are too familiar for repe- 
tition. There is not a little truth in their words. 
The forces they describe must have had their 
effect, but they were not sufficient for the results. 
Perhaps history did not feel warranted in going 
to the under-current of influence. History is 
always in danger of coming upon religion. Re- 
ligion gets wonderfully involved with the affairs 
of men, and moves along in every advance. But 
it is quiet and unobtrusive. Writers sometimes 
overlook it. It was by virtue of the spirit which 
was in it, of the thought of God and the steady 
movement of his intention, that the Christian truth 
went forward to do what it had been appointed 
and foreordained to do. 

The men who were to change the world had 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 245 

little learning or position. They had seen their 
Master crucified, and had seen Him afterward 
living. With entire devotion to his service they 
went out with their spiritual weapons. They 
were tolerated as harmless till they came to be 
feared. Paganism desired them as allies, and 
was quickly refused. The force which sought to 
compel the alliance was cruel to no purpose. The 
messengers of the faith could not be conquered. 
The first witnesses died, but others entered into 
their work. They made converts among the com- 
mon' people, and gained some of higher rank. At 
length the Emperor extended his favor to the 
Christians, and they had the formal right to be. 
" The religion of the despised Nazarene, against 
the most savage and persistent resistance ever 
known in the world, had conquered the em- 
pire." It " had transformed the world's history." 
Paganism had by no means been removed, but 
Christianity had not been destroyed. That de- 
creased, this increased. The statue on the Bos- 
phorus with the head of Constantine and the 
form of Apollo, with a piece of the true cross, has 
been thought a fit image of the time — a heathen 
body with a Christian head, and Christian life at 
the heart. On his death-bed the Emperor sought 
baptism and said, " Now all ambiguity vanishes." 
Julian strove in vain to bring back the fallen 



246 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

divinities. The words put upon his lips may 
never have been spoken ; but the Nazarene had 
conquered. 

It is not for me here to trace the extension of 
this work, to which the name Missions has been 
given. It was, of course, inevitable that these 
should be carried on by men who saw their title 
to discipleship in the obedience of Christ who had 
bidden them go into all the world and preach the 
Gospel to the whole creation. There was only 
one thing to be done in the presence of their 
" marching orders." Within them was the very 
spirit of the Gospel, that is. Love. Love insisted 
on sharing every good with every neighbor. The 
greater the good the greater the duty. The great 
leader was not of the first company ; but all the 
disciples, save one, were missionaries of the faith. 
Those of the multitude assembled at Pentecost 
whom the faith won to itself became missionaries 
as they returned to their scattered homes. The 
power of the truth was in it. Let it touch life, 
and it would make itself felt. The early successes 
were encouraging. It is not possible to determine 
their extent with accuracy. When all allowances 
are considered, it is clear that Christianity was 
acquiring strength and influence. The world 
could have been offered no other religion which 
could thus make itself regarded. Each new con- 



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CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 247 

vert was a new witness, and converts multiplied. 
We find Pliny writing that around him men of 
every rank were turning to the new religion ; in 
city and country the '' superstition " made its 
way, and the temples were almost forsaken. The 
emperor replied to him that if the Christians re- 
fused to honor the gods they were to be punished, 
but that otherwise they were not to be interfered 
with. They did refuse homage to the gods, and 
they were ready, more than ready, to seal their 
testimony with their life. Strong men and gentle 
women died in triumph, by the forms of death 
which cruel ingenuity could devise. This helped 
where it was meant to hinder. They lived with 
their hearts upon the cross of Christ, and coveted 
the cross for themselves. Tertullian wrote to the 
persecutors : " All your refinements of cruelty can 
accomplish nothing : on the contrary, they do but 
serve to win men over to this sect. Our number 
increases the more you persecute us." Again, he 
asserts their right to live because of the truth they 
were teaching. " Every Christian mechanic has 
found God, and shows Him to you ; and can teach 
you all in fact that you require to know of God ; 
even though Plato says that it is hard to find out 
the Creator of the universe, and impossible, after 
one has found Him, to make Him known to all." 
The conviction is to me unavoidable as I study 



248 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

these events, that there was here the light and life 
which the world needed ; and that they were 
offered by the Creator as his new and special 
gift. This is the meaning of it all. The new 
faith was doing an indispensable work which 
nothing else could attempt. There is much beauty 
and force in the saying of Augustine, "Christ 
appeared to the men of a decrepit and dying 
world, that, while all around them was decay- 
ing, they might through Him receive a new and 
youthful life." To this the German historian 
adds, "And the higher life which Christianity 
came to impart required no brilliant outward 
splendor for the manifestation of its glory." 

In every direction the new faith was spreading. 
It usually reached the cities first, and there it was 
more likely to be received than among the ruder 
people of the country, whose language it would 
often be difficult for strangers to speak. With 
this diffusion of the Christian faith we are not 
now concerned. It is certain that this came out 
of Jerusalem, made its way through neighboring 
and distant lands, going farther and farther until 
it has gained recognition around the globe, and 
stands to-day wherever civilization flourishes, with 
commerce and the arts, with learning, liberty, 
opportunity. By its own force, that is, the Divine 
force embodied in it, it has quietly pursued its 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 249 

way, and now it holds the world, and holds the 
future. 

But what has been the influence of Christian- 
ity ? Let it be remembered that the work is very 
far from completion. Yet something can even 
now be required of it. Its advance is evident. 
But what has it done as it has moved on from 
the land which knew it first ? I can readily give 
you a good answer, but I must give it in a book. 
Some fourteen or fifteen years ago a course of 
lectures was delivered before the Lowell Insti- 
tute, and elsewhere, by one of the most eminent 
of our scholars, who is both theologian and histo- 
rian. His lectures were entitled " The Divine 
Origin of Christianity indicated by its Historical 
Effects." With a profound admiration for Chris- 
tianity, in whose service, under whose command, 
he had spent many industrious years, he declared 
his belief, and I think he made those who heard 
him in three cities believe, that the work which 
Christianity has done proves its divinity. His 
feeling had been well expressed in the words of 
an illustrious man, honored in many lands, " The 
thorough interweaving of all the roots of Chris- 
tianity with the history of the world out of which 
it has sprung is at once a source of its power and 
an assurance of its divineness." About the same 
time another valuable book appeared, written by 



250 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

a man abundantly qualified for the work. It was 
called '' Gesta Ghristi ; or, A History of Human 
Progress under Christianity." With these works 
in your hands there is little for me to say. But 
I may mention by title some of the results of this 
movement whose beginning was so very simple 
and unpromising, and the vast meaning and reach 
of the words should be noticed. These facts 
were enforced and illustrated in the lectures: 
Christianity has given a new conception of God, 
finer, higher, diviner, as Father and Love ; not en- 
throned on inaccessible heights in " a chilling and 
cheerless solitude," but where the cry of a child 
can reach Him. It has given a new conception of 
man, exalting his nature, raising him to his place 
in the world, endowing him with liberty and 
honor ; making the lowest of account and the poor- 
est rich. It gave a new idea of the duty of man 
toward God ; of man's duty to man, in politics 
and society ; of the duties of nations toward each 
other. It has affected the mental culture of man- 
kind, and its effect can be seen in the world's 
hope of progress. If this list of chapters can sus- 
tain itself, as it was thought to do, Christianity 
has indeed moved on by a Divine force for the 
advancement of the world. Imagine any one 
attempting to demonstrate in ten hours that any 
other religion the world has ever known has been 



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CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 251 

able or desirous to carry man upward and forward 
along these lines ! " You have heard of the ten 
great religions of the world," remarks a brilliant 
preacher and a teacher of history. " Of these only 
three have been expansive and conquering relig- 
ions. . . . And as between the three, . . . 
the hard, historic fact is, that Christianity is cer- 
tainly carrying the day." 

Let me extract a few words from the other 
work. The influence of Christianity has been 
greatly helpful in the home ; it is " pure religion 
breathing household laws ; " for the father and 
his authority, for woman and her child. It has 
made law wiser and more humane over life and 
property, and over the slave. It has affected 
public and private war. It has advanced and 
created education and promoted reform. It has 
favored science and art. There was need of all 
this, else it could not have been done. There 
was need of a great deal more. We can at least 
appreciate the effects which we can trace to the 
faith from Jerusalem. 

One could hardly help being aware that it is 
charged upon the Church that it opposed scien- 
tific study and its results. This would not be a 
fatal charge, if it were true. But it is a matter 
with which I am not concerned, for I am not pre- 
senting the Church for your confidence, but Chris- 



252 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

tianity. The scientific method does not confuse 
terms so distinct. They are related, but they are 
not the same, and have never been the same. 

The Church has had its own work, and it is 
not surprising that in its devotion to this in the 
past it had little interest in scientific studies, 
or even feared them and opposed them. The 
Church was young, inexperienced, foolish. But 
it lived and learned. It has certainly learned. 
The Church of necessity felt the influence of 
Rome and received of its spirit, and Rome was not 
in sympathy with scientific inquiry. " The spirit 
of the naturalist did not exist among the Romans 
any more than it did among the Hebrew people." 
Whatever may have been the hesitation of the 
Church, no system of religion has looked with 
more favor upon scientific inquiry, or given it 
richer reward. Paganism certainly has not evoked 
or fostered it. What was the science of the best 
of the ancient nations in extent, method, accuracy, 
as measured by the standards of our time? I do 
not refer to modern discoveries, but to spirit 
and promise. As for opposition, is not that the 
fault of the times rather than the ecclesiastical 
authorities? Did they object to the conclusions 
which alarmed them because they belonged to the 
Church, or because they belonged to a benighted 
world not yet able to recognize its prophets ? 



y 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 253 

Was it because they were Christians, or because 
they were men, that they cherished the supersti- 
tions which now amuse us? There was Roger 
Bacon in the thirteenth century, a Franciscan 
friar, but a seer, who saw the coming of science 
and foretold its work ; the precursor, he has been 
called, of Francis Bacon, and Newton, and 
Erasmus, and Bentley. Yet he told of flying 
dragons in Ethiopia, which men saddled and 
bridled, and killed when they had ridden the 
flesh tender, and then ate that they might ward 
off the accidents of age. "They prolong life 
and refine the intellect beyond all belief." I do 
not know that he opposed anj; one in his dis- 
coveries. But he lets us see the confusion of the 
time, in which even a minister might be mis- 
taken ; a time where were wild superstitions, law- 
less vagaries, with fear and resistance when new 
theories threatened those which held the ground. 
That was not the spirit of the new faith, but the 
disposition against which it had to contend. 

Lecky tells us that " the belief that the king's 
touch can cure scrofula flourished in the most 
brilliant periods of English history. It was as- 
serted by the Privy Council, by the Bishops of 
two religions, by the general voice of the clergy 
in the palmiest days of the English Church, by 
the University of Oxford, and by the enthusiastic 



254 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

assent of the people." This was the delusion of 
the period, not the teaching of Christianity, which 
at length put an end to the superstition. 

Christianity desires to appropriate all that is 
good, and can use it in the service of mankind. 
Whatever advances the material well-being of man 
works in its behalf. It requires good government, 
it fosters learning; it must employ wealth, and 
looks with favor upon the industry which pro- 
duces it; it seeks the best literature ; it encour- 
ages science ; it depends upon art for its temples 
and their adornment, and through forms of beauty 
it presents the truths of the Spirit. 

I cannot do better than repeat the recent words 
of a most accomplished Church historian : '* Science 
only exists where Christian institutions have pre- 
pared the way for its advent ; and it builds upon 
the conviction which the miracle has aided to 
develop, that nothing is impossible to man in his 
struggle with nature in order to clothe himself 
with its power and to subdue its forces to the con- 
trol of the human will." If Christianity quickens 
the mental powers, promotes discovery, enlarges 
knowledge, why should it not do the same work 
in regard to the spiritual faculties, and quicken 
and elevate the life? If this is what comes of 
falling under Christ's control, reason compels us 
to yield ourselves to the influence so long as there 



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CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 255 

is more good to be received. On the other hand, 
Christianity is to be benefited by all the advance 
of learning and science. What has not been done 
oppresses us. What has been done immediately 
concerns us. 

I claim, in my turn, that the work of Christian- 
ity is evidence of its Divine character and mission. 
One thing is certain : this is the religion to which 
the world must look. There is no other quarter 
which gives the promise of light. Is not this 
evidence? The work before us is immense. Esti- 
mates in such matters are not of much account. 
But if I may express an opinion, the work which 
Christianity has yet to do is less difficult than that 
it has already done •, and the way before it is less 
uncertain, and its resources of wisdom are larger 
than it has used in the past. 

The beginning of Christianity when it set out 
upon its work was very natural. Those who were 
next to the Master began this ministr}'- to the world. 
We have very brief accounts of their journeys 
and experience. The New Testament chronicles 
tell us nearly all we know. For the greater part 
they were soon lost to sight, though their light 
was shining in dark places. St. Peter and St. 
John we know, and their work. They had a 
preeminence which has given them the title of 
Saint. Saint Paul was the chief missionary, but 



256 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

helpere were given to him, and upon these passed 
the great name of Apostle. They worked with 
order and prudence, and with an aim at stability. 
Everywhere men believed. After a time they 
became formally organized, with all the appoint- 
ments for work and worship. The manner in 
which this was effected is not known, but it was 
done. Apparently it was not done at any one 
time, but by degrees. Methods were hidden in 
the life. More care was taken to do the work 
than to transmit an account of it. It was natural 
that the early churches should be affected by the 
life around them, and under its influence should 
fashion their own methods. The institutions of 
the Empire might be expected to give the idea 
of government. The literary and philosophical 
spirit of Greece, in whose language the New Tes- 
tament was written, gave forms of thought and 
expression to the new faith. " The Roman genius 
for government and administration, Greek phil- 
osophy, and the ancient mysteries of Oriental 
origin . . . constituted, as it were, the lan- 
guage which Christianity must adopt, if it was to 
make the conquest of the Empire for Christ." 
Great good was accomplished by means of organi- 
zation. But it was not all good. A way was 
opened for ambition and contention, and we come 
very soon upon dark pages of history. 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 257 

The churches grew in dimensions and impor- 
tance. If the new companies gained anything by 
taking on dignity and claiming a share in national 
affairs, they certainly lost very much in parting 
with their simplicity. Their real force was spirit- 
ual, and this is seldom aided by arms and author- 
ity, by wealth and rank. As one wittily said, the 
time came when the Church was not forced to 
confess that it had no silver and gold ; but it was 
able no longer to bid a lame man rise up and walk. 
The croziers became golden and the persons who 
held them wooden, it was remarked. Then came 
divisions, tyrannies, persecutions, and a host of 
confusions and oppressions. It is sad reading ; 
and all the worse that a splendid opportunity was 
misunderstood. The spirit of the first days was 
lost or lessened. Not all consented to unchristian 
deeds. There were protests, efforts at resistance, 
separations, reformations. The life and the truth 
were never disowned, never lost. Through the 
strife we hear the voice of charity and peace. In 
the worst times there was a " Remnant " of the 
good and true. It is some credit to the Church, 
some witness to its vitality, that it survived the 
conduct of its friends. Its enemies were less 
dangerous. Let us accept the testimony of his- 
tory to the indestructibility of the Christian 
Church. It has moved with unbroken life from 



258 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

its simple beginning, through all changes within 
it and without it, through national revolutions 
and social transformations. The globe has been 
shaken, but the Church has not been shaken off 
nor shaken down. It has stood at the centre of 
tumult, and in it all has been firm. The gates of 
hell have not prevailed against it ; — that was the 
assurance once given in Galilee. If I may change 
the figure, the ship has come through the storm, 
with her rigging worn, her masts strained, and 
her rudder twisted, but with her hulk seaworthy ; 
leaking here and there, but on the whole sound. 

There are bright places all along the way of the 
years. There are many saintly lives and many 
Christian deeds; with wise administrations, fa- 
mous schools, devoted missions, a gracious spirit. 
We mark a generous hospitality, a blessed charity, 
a love of books and a fondness for making them 
beautiful, with patience and taste which have won 
admiration ; many stately buildings, treasures of 
learning, and hymns which it is still a delight 
to sing. The churches have preserved for us the 
Bible and the sacraments. The gracious, helpful 
influences which have been named have come 
down with the sadder events which could not 
prevent them, which even give them lustre by 
the contrast. It is a troubled story. It shows 
what can be expected of men, and makes us 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 259 

more sure that if we are to make a great advance 
we must be helped from above. 

In describing the early Christian life, let me 
copy a few sentences from an anonymous writing 
of the second century, a mere fragment, which 
gives a picture of the life of that time. " Chris- 
tians are not distinguished from the rest of man- 
kind either in territory or in speech or in habits 
of life. What the soul is in the body, this 
Christians are in the world. The soul dwells in 
the body, but is not of the body ; so Christians 
dwell in the world, and are not of the world. They 
share every duty as citizens, and they suffer every 
indignity as foreigners. Every foreign country is 
a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is for- 
eign to them. . . . Christians, when punished, 
increase more and more from day to day, so noble 
is the post which God has assigned to them, and 
which it is not lawful for them to decline." 

We must turn our thoughts forward. Certainly 
the new faith has proved its virtue. The mission- 
ary idea which was essential in Christianity has 
remained in the churches. It could not be lost 
unless the very spirit of Christ and his teaching 
disappeared. The attempt to localize or nation- 
alize his religion would be a heresy for which 
there could be no excuse. To claim that we alone 
need it, or we alone could receive it, were not 



260 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

becoming. The expectation cherished by the early- 
Christians was in keeping with their instructions, 
and they saw in Christianity the religion for the 
world. They believed that it would meet every 
man's wants, and protect and guide his life. This 
was their confidence in their Lord, and it was 
very early justified, as the men of many nations 
found in the new faith that which they required. 
They knew that Christ was to conquer and reign. 
Their zeal held its force for century after century, 
though with irregular control, and often with no 
movement forward. To say that they had misap- 
prehension concerning times and means, and that 
they made serious mistakes, is only to confess 
their limitations. The more we think upon their 
shortcoming, the more must we magnify the 
wisdom which employed the men, and with their 
imperfectness wrought out better results than 
could be found anywhere else. Their work was 
not to be done speedily; not so speedily as some 
thought. The ways of Providence are often slow. 
Perhaps their errors were allowed to stay the 
wheels of the chariot lest they should roll too 
rapidly. What we are to mark now is the increas- 
ing purpose, venturing from the Paschal chamber 
at Jerusalem, to win the world for Christ, and to 
give Christ to the world as its Redeemer and 
King. It was a magnificent intention, even as 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 261 

they held it, and there was leagued with it an 
imperial hope which has never ceased. 

But what is the condition of the world to-day 
with regard to its religions ? At the time when 
these Apostles entered on their work all the Chris- 
tians there were could have lived in a small town. 
Now it is estimated that the world has a popula- 
tion of not far from fifteen hundred millions, of 
whom about one-third, or four hundred and ninety 
millions, call themselves Christians. Of course, 
millions of these are not Christians in the real 
sense of the word; that is, they are not personally 
devoted to Christ. But the vast numbers mark 
the extension of the name, and in this is a stupen- 
dous truth. At that time no Gospel had been 
written, with the story of Christ's life and his 
words of instruction and promise. Now, the 
Gospel can be placed in the hands of three-fourths 
of the people of the globe. In three hundred and 
twenty languages some portion of the Bible is now 
printed for the advantage of the world, that men 
may have the knowledge of God and his redeem- 
ing love. 

Can we estimate the Christian forces? Every 
Christian is a force in the service of Christ. It is 
the condition of discipleship. By him others are 
to be won, and every man who is won is a new 
soldier of the Cross. It means this to be a Chris- 



262 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

tian, as Christ bestows the name. The order is 
this : the Creator ; the Son of Man with new life 
for men ; multitudes of Christians in life and 
under the sway of the Holy Spirit to give life to 
the world. There are certain organizations of 
Christ's men which are to be regarded. There are 
churches, colleges, libraries, hospitals, brother- 
hoods, charities, in almost endless variety. The 
work for the world goes on, sometimes with obser- 
vation, and sometimes in secret. The hope which 
rules is unabated. It cannot be removed until 
faith vanishes away. After years in the wilder- 
ness the churches have found themselves, and 
have regained the meaning of their life. Figures 
easily slip from the mind, but I use them to 
give some impression of the forces now engaged 
in this part of the service of Christ. The sta- 
tistics are recent, but no longer exact. There are 
eleven thousand six hundred and fifty-nine men 
and women who are by special appointment teach- 
ing the good news of God in countries which are 
not their own. There are sixty-four thousand two 
hundred and ninety-nine who are reported as 
native laborers, that is, persons who have them- 
selves been taught, and are, in their turn, teach- 
ing their countrymen. The annual income of the 
voluntary associations which direct this enter- 
prise is nearly thirteen million dollars. 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 263 

Let it be remarked that this money is cheer- 
fully given without thought of return, and to those 
who have never been seen by the givers ; to people 
of strange lands, whose history and ways of life are 
separate from ours ; as the free-will offering of 
faith in Christ and his teaching, in the glad obe- 
dience of his command ; and that those who have 
given their lives to this service, becoming exiles 
from country and home, and the things we value 
most, have done it in their devotion to Him, their 
knowledge of his truth, their experience of his 
love, their longing to have his name and grace 
made a blessing in all the earth. It is a splendid 
testimony to the reality of the Christian life. 

All this is but a portion. These are the mis- 
sions of Protestant churches. These are modem 
and recent. Let it be remembered that all which 
Protestant Foreign Missionary organizations have 
done was begun in the lifetime of men who live 
to trace the work from its beginning. The first 
of these is but eighty-eight years old, and the 
next but sixty-one. A century is a short time 
for large results in an undertaking of this nature. 
To these results should be added the extensive 
missions of the Roman Catholic Church. The 
record of the devotion, heroism, sacrifice, of 
the priests who have carried the Cross into the 
wilderness that they might by means of it save 



264 CAUSE OF cnmsT in hands of men 

the souls of men is unsurpassed. It is a noble 
army which under these names has gone forth to 
seek and to save. 

Comparisons are out of place. But the roll of 
our thirty-six hundred American missionaries is a 
list of noblemen. They are college men, select 
men, who could fill the places here quite as well 
as those who stay at home. With them are women 
of high attainment, of beautiful culture, of serenest 
courage. They are good men and women, and 
good-natured ; able to work, and able to work with 
others ; with a conception of their enterprise which 
is a constant inspiration. No civil-service rules 
are so strict as those under which these Christians 
pass. It is not to learn their belief more than their 
health, and disposition, and desire. It must be 
clear that they understand themselves, and are 
fitted to carry out the purpose of those who send 
them and support them. It is a serious matter to 
send missionaries abroad, to sustain them while 
they learn a strange language, and to invest a large 
hope in them, and those who do this have a right 
to know whom they are taking into partnership. 
The entire management of this enterprise is in 
the hands of strong men, men of business, lawyers, 
clergymen ; and of women wise to plan, skil- 
ful to discern, patient and brave ; who bring all 
their wisdom to bear upon the religious, social, 



y 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 265 

and financial questions which press upon them. 
The dignity of the work is in keeping with its 
importance. It is impossible to give results with 
an approach to fulness, and they are of inferior 
moment while the work is steadily going on. 
But I find that the Protestant societies count 
up four thousand six hundred and ninety-four 
mission stations, with fifteen thousand two hun- 
dred out-stations, over a million communicants, 
and nearly a million persons under instruction. 
What is sought is that every person in the world 
shall know Christ and receive his help ; shall 
learn of Him to know the Father, to do his will, to 
live in his favor, to have eternal life which can 
readily be extended to the world that comes 
next. The design is broad. It is not to seize 
a savage and snatch him from endless death; 
but to find the savage, or the sage, and tell him, 
what no man knows till he is told, at home or 
abroad, that the Love of God is in the earth 
seeking its own, that it may give them a right 
spirit and persuade them into life, which is the 
gift of Love. 

This Christian enterprise recognizes whatever 
good it finds, whatever of truth and faith, and 
making the most of this, in an economical spirit, 
adds to it more truth, higher truth, the Truth. 
Thes^ men have not consecrated themselves to a 



266 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN RANDS OF MEN 

wearisome failure, and they intend to deserve the 
success for which they strive. 

They know what they believe, and they be- 
lieve that it is worth any man's knowing. They 
work rationally and discreetly. It is not proposed 
to transplant our Western system of thought and 
of life, and our institutions as they have been 
made for ourselves ; but in their own language 
to present to men the Son of Man, and to persuade 
them to acknowledge Him as Master and Lord ; 
and to make their own philosophy and set up 
their own organizations, and to order their affairs 
after their own judgment. New England Chris- 
tians are in place here. But we cannot expect 
the Chinaman to become a New Englander. Let 
him retain his Oriental habit of mind and hold it 
in allegiance to the one Teacher. The design is 
to build up a kingdom on the earth, including all 
nations and peoples, where the will of God shall 
be done as it is in heaven. 

It is not proposed that all this shall be accom- 
plished by missionaries. Their work is to begin ; 
to teach what they have learned, and to let this 
do its own work. They are to raise up in every 
country men of the land who shall minister to 
their own people. They are to make Christians 
of the New Testament order, in which every 
man who learned was to repeat the truth to his 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 267 

neighbor. Let me remark again, it is literally 
the method of the leaven and the seed. There 
is a natural limit, therefore, to the undertaking, 
and one which need not be far away. 

We may not overlook the variety of the benefits 
which these men confer. They are by no means 
confined to things unseen and eternal. They are 
students and teachers. Geography, ethnology, 
history, sociology, philology, every department 
of knowledge, is indebted to them. They repre- 
sent their country, and with honor. Their ser- 
vice to the people whom they seek, given in 
their daily life, is manifold and inestimable. 

There has recently died in England a Christian, 
a Prussian by birth, who had expended seven 
million dollars in the care of orphan children, 
for more than forty thousand of whom he had 
provided a home, and this large amount of money 
had been given to him by Christian men and wom- 
en, without solicitation, in their knowledge and 
approval of his work of faith and charity. This 
is an instance of one man's usefulness through 
a free and bold Christian confidence. The method 
and result are altogether in keeping with the 
spirit which controlled the enterprise. The whole 
design is distinctively Christian. It may be seen 
all along the centuries since Christ blessed the 
children. That which we call Christianity would 



268 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

forfeit its right to the name if it did not seek to 
bless men in this present world as the accompani- 
ment of endless blessing. It was a beautiful 
testimony which the simple islander gave to the 
spirit of the missionary Patteson when his life had 
been taken from him by the mistaken savages for 
whom he lived: "He loved them all alike." I 
do not know of better reading than the memoirs 
of our missionaries, for those who would see a 
really Divine, Christ-like manhood in its grandeur. 
They give life and give it abundantly. They 
count nothing dear unto themselves if they can 
help others with it. They carry the wealth of the 
richest lands into those which are poorest. They 
create manhood. They teach law and liberty, good 
order and safety. 

They make homes, elevate women, gladden chil- 
dren, save life and make it worth saving. They 
carry medicine and surgery, and all the useful 
arts. The African chief who exulted when he 
saw a plough, because it would save him five 
wives, offers a gross type of a man who felt 
better off. Imagine the advantage to the Dark 
Continent of having David Livingstone within 
it! We need not inquire too carefully for the 
consequences. Duty does not depend upon that. 
But in any case no one can doubt the worth to 
a land of having the men and women whom we 



y 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 269 

call missionaries live in it, with no other design 
than to do the people good. 

Great things have been done. But let me re- 
peat, much more has been effected in taking up 
the work, getting it in hand, learning how to do 
it, getting established on the ground. The day 
of experiments is over. Investments are made, 
in men, in buildings, in churches and schools, in 
methods, in brave lives which have remembrance. 
It was the thoughtful statement of one of the 
scholarly leaders in this movement, called early 
from the work which needed him, and which 
he needed, that " Christianity has now become 
naturalized everywhere among the most diverse 
nations," and " everywhere demonstrates its char- 
acter as the one religion for the human race." 
It has reached the highest and the lowest, and 
has proved its grace and truth. It is a pleasant 
picture which Drummond gives of an African 
who had become Christ's man : " He was neither 
bright nor clever ; he was a commonplace black ; 
but he did his duty and never told a lie. I 
looked out of my tent ; a flood of moonlight lit up 
the forest, and there, kneeling upon the ground, 
was a little group of natives, and Moolu in the 
centre conducting evening prayers." His " life 
gave him the right to do it. I believe in missions, 
for one thing, because I believe in Moolu." 



270 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

But religion does not work alone. It is in the 
world where national changes may combine to its 
advantage. Nothing is too great or too small for 
its use. Greece gave to the Good News a lan- 
guage, and Rome a world. The finding of this 
Western Continent gave a new place to the 
young life, a new vantage-ground from which 
to reach over the earth. In "rectifying boun- 
daries " more may be accomplished than is de- 
signed. We cannot look upon the devious ways 
of nations with an intelligent confidence. Still, 
changes are certain, and change suggests oppor- 
tunity. Where it has a chance, the life proves its 
power beyond all question and does all it is asked 
to do. But, unfortunately, for the most part the 
great advances are not at present in the most 
important sections of the world. In the Turkish 
Empire its way is blocked by Mohammedanism, 
which never yields an inch, where cruelty has 
been written in blood, as it will be to the end. 
The red hand on the wall of St. Sophia is the 
seal it stamps on everything it touches. But as 
civilization advances even Turkey may feel it and 
modernize its life. Much is already being done 
by these men and women ; by Robert College on 
the Bosphorus, with the American flag waving 
above it; and the Girls' College at Constanti- 
nople, chartered by Massachusetts ; and other 



CAUSE OF CHBIST IN HANDS OF MEN 271 

kindred institutions. We are making headway 
even there. The best friends Turkey has had 
are the Christian missionaries who have been 
found heroes in the sad days which are not yet 
over. It looks as if only compulsion can effect 
the freedom of Christianity ; but in the clashing 
of the powers even compulsion is possible. 

There have been notable successes in India. 
Western influences have been felt. But India 
has not become Christian. Its religions have lost 
much of their authority, but no other has taken 
their place. Reforms have come, but the greatest 
reform is from without. We are told upon the 
highest authority that extraordinary changes are 
quietly taking place in India, in the political, 
social, moral, and religious life of the people. 
The difficulties are evident and serious. India is 
old. She is proud, and with reason. She has her 
own faith. Christianity is the religion of foreign- 
ers, and foreigners who have taken away her lib- 
erty. It interferes with venerated customs and 
prejudices. Its method of thought is different 
from hers. But in all this there is nothing which 
must be permanent. Christianity stands with far 
more promise on the borders of India, and the 
great countries beyond, than it had at Antioch 
when it looked out upon the world. Sudden 
changes may come, are quite certain to come if we 



272 CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

deserve them. India is under British rule. Ships 
from other lands are in her ports. Railroads 
traverse her territory. Schools are giving out 
their light. Christian voices from the West are 
eagerly heard, and books are read. It is much to 
look for, yet it does not seem too much, the day 
when India, not along her coral strands alone, 
but far among her hills, shall know the life of the 
world. Certainly, these great nations, as they 
stand, are not the final outcome of the purposes 
of Providence. Nor can we detect a nearness 
to what by courtesy could be called the Kingdom 
of heaven. Nor are there living signs of its ap- 
proach. The ages must be long which unaided 
will bring it in. Ages will never bring it in. It 
is proven that this which we name Christianity 
will do for India and Turkey all they need, if 
ever it is allowed to do it. This is the affirma- 
tion of history. 

I am entirely willing to present the results of 
missionaiy eifort. They have been as large as 
we have any right to expect, when we consider 
how half-hearted and half-handed we have been 
even in these years of opportunity. It is doubt- 
ful if any effort could have completed the work 
rapidly. It is often thought that the first preach- 
ing and teaching were much more remunerative. 
Probably we overrate those early efforts. There 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 273 

were great difficulties then as there are now. 
Triumph and defeat marked those days as they 
do these. " History has been called an excellent 
cordial for the drooping courage." It was a 
splendid service which was rendered by those 
fii-st soldiers of the Cross. But they could not 
cover the world, nor completely gain that which 
was open to them. After a hundred years at 
Rome, Christianity was still " a foreign supersti- 
tion," "destructive," "new and noxious," per- 
verse, and extravagant." I take Bishop Light- 
foot's estimate, that in the third century scarcely 
more than a hundred and fiftieth of the human 
race were Christians. There were rapid gains 
following the conversion of Constantine, but there 
is nothing to make us feel that our spirit and our 
ways are inadequate to our task. If we could 
part with our differences, and unite our forces 
in a common advance, the reward would soon 
come, and there is nothing which could perma- 
nently resist the army which has never been 
conquered. 

It is well for us to remember what we are. 
We are proud of our descent. Among our an- 
cestors " each freeman . . . was his own house- 
priest ; and English worship lay commonly in the 
sacrifice which the house-father offered to the 
gods of his hearth." " Life was built with them 



274 CA USE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 

not on the hope of a hereafter, but on the proud 
self-consciousness of noble souls." The Christian 
faith early made its way to Britain, but was 
driven into obscurity by the invaders ; and as the 
sixth century was closing an Italian monk with 
his companions landed on the island of Thanet, 
and Christianity began to be the religion of the 
realm. In the open field, for safety, the king 
received the strangers. In their belief they were 
not strangers to Bertha, his queen, whose faith 
commended them. England has owed much to 
women. " You can speak freely to my people," 
said the king. Presently the king was baptized, 
and to-day the whole world feels his faith. He 
did not know that he was touching the whole 
world. That was one of the few great events. 
The faith of those rude Christians was not very 
intelligent or very profound. But it was a 
beginning. A thousand years later it crossed 
the wide sea and established itself permanently 
on these shores. Hence the Republic. Every 
American believes in foreign missions, so far 
at least as his own history is concerned. Our 
schools, colleges, churches, governments, we owe 
in this measure to Italians ; they are the fruit of 
our religion. The grateful intelligence of Amer- 
ica is committed. I ask to have it noted, that 
this colossal event in the political history of the 



CAUSE OF CHRIST IN HANDS OF MEN 275 

world, the forming of this Republic, without 
parallel or precedent, had its beginning in the 
name of Chiistianity and under its inspiration. 
The influence of these two English-speaking 
nations increases. If they will move together, 
in the obedience of faith, they will make a way 
for the Augustine of our later time, and he will 
walk by the Bosphorus, and along the streams 
of India, and over the mountains of China 
and Japan, bearing always the Cross of light 
and liberty, and everywhere Angles shall become 
angels. 



VI 

THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 



The forces which are to make the world the 
world it ought to be are now within it. Some of 
them have been here from the beginning, and 
have worked on patiently for the improvement of 
society and those who compose it. We have 
come recently to make account of these inherent 
powers more than in the past. Every sign of the 
presence of God in the world is of help to us. 
The tendencies of life are to be searched out, 
and we are indebted to those who work in that 
domain with fidelity and skill, and make the re- 
sults our common property. I wish that they 
could give us more encouragement. Perhaps 
they will do so, for science is young. Fortunately 
it is daring, and boldness is another name for 
promise. It must be confessed that these natural 
processes are very deliberate. They are altogether 
too slow for the individual, who properly objects 
to bemg absorbed in the race, and to find the ful- 
filment of his life in a congeries of strangers; to 
be lost in the crowd. This is not selfishness nor 



280 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

egotism. It is self-respect. It can be cherished 
without compunction, seeing that it takes noth- 
ing from the well-being of remote descendants. 
Under the rule of Providence every one has the 
right to look for hi^ own advance, and every one 
thinks he has fitness enough to warrant his sur- 
vival." One thing is evident, that these natural 
forces are not accomplishing the work which 
needs to be done. We are by no means sure of 
their continuance and the happy completing of 
their effort. Even now they do not bring men 
to the knowledge of God, their Father, whose 
life and law are Love, and to the estate of Glory, 
Honor, Immortality. They do not give that new 
principle of life which contents a man before his 
own conscience and the intelligent thought of 
his Creator. In a word, they do not give life 
and renew the first creation. One speaks with 
caution when he alludes to the possibilities of the 
ages. We are soon carried to the realm of con- 
jecture and expectation. Under other conditions 
we might have been glad even of hope. But we 
have no need to resort to it. We can keep it as 
a solace for imaginative hours. It is plainly not 
substantial enough for daily use. Happily we 
have a way of life which is entirely definite, and 
is open before the feet of every man ; so narrow 
that no one need miss it, so wide that good men 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 281 

can walk abreast. The presence of God is in 
the world; in it, but not held to it or limited 
by it ; in it to use his Love, wherein is the whole 
range of fatherly thought and desire, for the 
regaining and perfecting of his children. This 
presence of God was in its fulness manifested in 
his Son, the Son of Man, who has given his life 
for the world. The Spirit of God, that is, God 
who is Spirit, is in the world to persuade men 
into the Divine grace of the Son of Man. This is 
distinct. Resting here, one can welcome all 
additions to knowledge, every disclosure of the 
thought of the Creator, every bestowment of his 
spirit in the lives of men. His ministry of life 
our Lord committed to his friends, that through 
them all might learn of Him. On the largest 
scale all things would be made to work together 
for their good. It is not difficult to see that the 
teaching of the Son of Man has advanced with the 
course of events. We boast of the age we are 
living in, and not without reason ; and I presume 
we should agree that Christ and his teaching 
have never been so well understood and appre- 
ciated, and never had so great influence as in this 
remarkable century. " There is no romance so 
marvellous as the most prosaic version of his 
history," whether this be read in the Bible or in 
the later chronicles of men and nations. I use 



282 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

the word influence in a large way; for this is 
felt in many places where its authorship is not 
confessed. Indeed, it is impossible to separate 
the influence of Christianity from any virtue, or 
any good work, which we find here. We have 
inherited something of its method and spirit, 
perhaps through generations. If we give it no 
personal heed, we are not free from its control. 
It is in the home and the school. It is in our 
blood, our nerves, our habit of thought and work. 
It is in customs, in literature, in institutions. 
We cannot take it out of the air we breathe. 
There are disciples who are unaware of their 
discipleship. It is like the breaking of the day 
when one of them finds Him in whom he has 
believed, and finding Him believes the more. 

I am to mention one event which finds its 
beginning in this control, and in accomplishing 
the Divine purpose has the intent and honor 
of its being. The past and the future meet 
within it, and on equal terms. I have already 
named the formation of this Republic as an 
event ordered of God for the bringing in of his 
Kingdom upon the earth. I have no declama^ 
tion upon our national greatness and honor, but 
history cannot be trifled with. If the presence 
and direction of God in the affairs of men are 
to be recognized, if they are a reality, it should 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 283 

be an easy thing to see them. In our idea of 
God, He is a very present help, working out the 
counsel of his own will. If the presence and 
work of the Son of Man are as real and Divine as 
I have claimed, then nothing which can be done 
among men, among nations, is too great to be 
made tributary to them. How can we sever 
such things from the thought of the Creator? 
The child's question was a natural one, ''What 
does God do all day ? " For myself I reply at 
once : God is carrying forward the ministry which 
entered the world when Christ was born in Beth- 
lehem. 

It was by Divine guidance — this seems to me 
the only rational explanation — it was by Di- 
vine guidance that Spain was warded off from 
this Northern coast. The continent was in- 
deed " picked out of the ocean on the point of a 
needle ; " but it was not brought from the obscur- 
ity of centuries for her possession. The treasure 
of the new continent was a sorry prize for Cas- 
tile and Aragon. But it was made to serve the 
interest of freedom beyond all desire of its pos- 
sessors. I believe the Netherland school of lib- 
erty was really founded by American gold. 

A Republic is the highest form of political 
institution, so D'Tocqueville wrote, and we 
assent to it. The highest form of Republic is 



284 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

one made of different nationalities, brought under 
one government and one flag. Such a Republic 
was unknown, and the time came for it. Where 
should it be ? Asia offered no field, Europe was 
crowded and committed, and Africa was hardly 
the place for an experiment so grand and diffi- 
cult. This was the only land where a nation of 
this kind was possible. This continent had been 
concealed until the right men, rightly trained, 
could build their houses in the wilderness and 
hold the ground for a purpose larger than they 
knew. Let me give out one verse of the Boston 
Hymn : 

The word of the Lord by night 
To the watching Pilgrims came, 

As they sat by the sea-side, 
And filled their hearts with flame. 

It was at that time, and with a clear under- 
standing of all which was involved, that John 
Winthrop wrote for the " encouraging such whose 
hearts Gods shall move to joyne" in "the in- 
tended Plantation in New England." "It will 
be a service to the Church of great consequence 
to carry the Gospel into those parts of the world, 
to help on the coming of the fulness of the Gen- 
tiles." If these words of the early statesman and 
missionary, with the verses of the New England 
poet, truly record the suggestion and the inten- 



THE CHRISTIAN FOliCES 285 

tion which brought Englishmen to these shores, 
the historical spirit leads us to look for the con- 
tinuance of the inspired and exalted purpose. I 
have no thought of tracing our national life. It 
has not been altogether according to our mind. 
But it has never lost the way or the course. In 
nearly three hundred years we have not made a 
serious mistake, an error of imperial proportions. 
Our line has wavered and been irregular, but 
we have gone forward. The Colonies have be- 
come a Republic, the first empire of its kind. "E 
pluribus unum " means of many nations one State. 
The Republic has cast off slavery and now stands 
in its strength. Perhaps this has a sound of brag- 
ging, but never mind. We have a chronic habit 
of living up to our boasting; and something 
must be pardoned to the exuberance of youth. 
In all parts of the land many are working to- 
gether for the preserving, the strengthening, 
the completing, of the Republic which demands 
more the more it receives. But no men are 
doing better work than those who are in direct 
Christian service, and notably those who in the 
West and South are teaching the religion which 
includes virtue, industry^, patriotism ; and, fol- 
lowing our own experience, are building into 
the nation the intelligence and piety which 
will be security and strength. Let us be mind- 



286 THE CHBISTIAN FORCES 

ful of the good which we have, and cleave 
to it. 

Here in name, to a large degree in truth, the 
Creator is confessed. His law is authority, and 
his Providence is trusted. The name of the Son 
of Man and his teaching are honored. The day 
of his birth and of his rising from the dead are 
regarded. On the first day of every week his re- 
surrection is commemorated. There is much of 
formality and informality in this, but it is signifi- 
cant that opinion and feeling are thus expressed. 
The events have a permanent record, though their 
meaning may not be considered, and the form may 
recover the spirit. 

The influence of this country is increasing. The 
influence of England is everywhere felt. The 
two nations have one history and one language ; 
one mission and opportunity. They reach the 
whole earth, and are able to extend the teaching 
of Christ and to present his life for the life of men. 
At present the hope of the world is, in good 
measure, in these nations, while others bear his 
name and pray for his Kingdom, that it may come 
upon the earth. We do well to remember that the 
latest proposal of peace was from the land of Peter 
the Great, who built a city on the sea to bring his . 
people closer to the world. Still, for the present, 
the main dependence for leadership must be upon 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 287 

the English lands. Liberty, knowledge, righteous- 
ness, must go from their doors. Religion can be 
found everywhere ; it is life the world needs. 
Life and light dwell together; where the free 
school and the free church stand in increasing 
strength ; the right to think and the intention, 
the liberty, to speak, and the determination to 
make use of it. When we reckon numbers and 
count our gains we may be despondent. But 
when we observe where Christianity is, and with 
what energy it is allied, we have new hope. But 
the great thing is to feel that the Creator is at 
work, that the intention which gave Christ to the 
earth abides in all its strength. It is in the 
world, and while this is true 

To doubt would be disloyalty. 

In place of any prediction of my own, or my 
countrymen's, let me read these generous words 
of an English scholar: "In the centuries that 
lie before us, the primacy of the world will lie 
with the English People. English institutions, 
English speech, English thought, will become the 
main features of the political, the social, and the 
intellectual life of mankind. ... In the days 
that are at hand the main current of that peo- 
ple's history must run along the channel not of 
the Thames or the Mersey, but of the Hudson 



288 THE christian: forces 

and the Mississippi." I supplement the promise 
of the English historian with the words of the 
American statesman. The late Secretary of State 
said at Cambridge : " Our mission is to act. We 
must advance the cause of Christian charity by 
deeds as well as words. There is a patriotism of 
race as well as of country. The Anglo-American 
race should not forget this. They should stand 
together if necessary against all the world, for in 
their closer union lies the best type of all Chris- 
tianity." Thus we send out our voice " To a 
people proud and free." 

And it says to them : Kinsmen, hail ! 

We severed have been too long; 
Now let us have done with a worn-out tale, 

The tale of an ancient wrong; 
And our friendship last long as love doth last, 

And be stronger than death is strong. 

What we term missionary work is not limited 
to personal effort. The enterprise is organized 
and known in the banks and by the government 
of every State. But besides this, nations are 
missionaries. The ships from Christian countries 
cany at least the name of Christ, and their move- 
ments pay heed to his life. Our navy floats the 
Sabbath flag in the harbors of the world. I wish 
I could say all this with more confidence. 

I have spoken of the hope of the world and its 



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THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 289 

place in a young nation. We have little in the 
past, but no one can measure the years to come. 
To be alive and increasing, to be young and 
awake, this is to order the future. It cannot be 
constructed out of the days which are gone, or by 
those whose chief faculty is memory and chief 
pastime the admiration of ancestry. The heroes 
and divinities of distant periods have their place, 
but the present must have its own leaders. 
Christianity belongs in this day as truly and 
literally as in any period of its history. No mark 
of age, no sign of change, has passed upon it. 
The most important thing it has done in the latter 
half of this century is the summoning to its ser- 
vice the young life which has responded eagerly. 
On the Day of Pentecost, when the new faith 
started forward into all neighboring lands, it 
was announced that the words of the Hebrew 
prophet were fulfilled. They began to be ful- 
filled ; but so far as we have any account a very 
important part of them was not at all regarded. 
The time had not come. There is perspective in 
prophecy. The Prophet had said, " Your young 
men shall see visions." " Your sons and your 
daughters shall prophesy." That was twenty-seven 
hundred years ago, but not till our own time has 
this been true. Now it is superbly true. A new 
page is written into the annals of the faith. Young 



290 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

men are seeing visions and declaring them. To 
enlist youth in the service of the faith is to make 
its advance certain. Young men and women in 
the light of the vision are united for this purpose 
under various names, all of which are Christian. I 
make no distinction between these organizations. 
But since I cannot describe all, let me state a few 
facts regarding one, and the oldest. These can be 
readily extended to the others. I speak now of the 
Young Men's Christian Association, with which 
should be associated that of the young women. 
The first association of young men was formed in 
London in 1844. The first in Boston was formed 
in 1851. Since then they have swept over the 
globe. In 1897 buildings were purchased for 
their use in Rome, Madras, Calcutta, Tientsin, Rio 
de Janeiro. The last report which I have gives 
fourteen hundred and twenty-nine associations in 
America, with a membership of two hundred and 
forty-eight thousand, seven hundred and thirty- 
four ; with buildings and other real estate valued 
at seventeen million, seven hundred and seven 
thousand, nine hundred and fifty dollars, and with 
an annual expense list of more than two million 
and a half dollars. The figures give some idea of 
the dimensions to which this work has attained. 
All this force is for manhood, good citizenship, in- 
dustry, generosity, godliness. Here are a few 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 291 

figures from one of our younger American cities. 
There are five buildings, valued at one million, 
eight hundred and thirty-two thousand dollars; 
and .five thousand, nine hundred and tliirty-two 
members. The receipts for 1897 were eighty-seven 
thousand, eight hundred and ninety-six dollars, 
and forty-two cents, a gain of more than eighteen 
thousand dollars over the preceding year. 

This is only one department of the enterprise, 
which has also taken its place in colleges. The 
seventy thousand young men in our colleges and 
universities are a power which is equal to any- 
thing rational which they attempt. These asso- 
ciations are permanently established in about five 
hundred and fifty North American institutions for 
higher learning, which is nearly the whole. It is 
reported that more than one-half the students 
are enlisted under the name of Christ, that He 
may win the world. These associations are 
leagued together for the enhancement of their 
strength. President Roswell Hitchcock was so 
impressed with what he saw that he said, " The 
omnipresence, and I had almost said the om- 
nipotence, of the Intercollegiate Young Men's 
Christian Association is the great fact in the 
religious life of our colleges to-day." A union 
similar to this holds nearly every great institu- 
tion in England and Scotland. The wisdom and 



292 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

the spirit are enlarged within each body of young 
men, while combined effort employs and increases 
the separate force. With the spirit rich in cour- 
age, deep in devotion, young men have looked 
abroad, desiring to make the most of their life 
and to help the world. With only one opportu- 
nity, they have resolved to make the most of it. 
Another world may offer exalted employment; 
but this chance comes but once. They are under 
the vows of knighthood to be all they can, and to 
do all they can, " In His Name." Thousands in 
the United States and Canada have banded them- 
selves together for what was once foreign work. 
It looked like the enthusiasm of youth. I pre- 
sume that almost every person has so regarded it. 
It was the old-fashioned way of judging young 
men. This is all recent, but under tliis Student 
Volunteer movement, more than eleven hundred 
have already gone, as the time came when their 
training was complete, and the number ready to 
go is in excess of the means to send them. Over 
four thousand are now enrolled as volunteers. In 
view of this enrolment President McCosh ex- 
claimed, " Has any such offering of living young 
men and women been presented in our age, 
in our country, in any age or in any country, 
since the Day of Pentecost ? " Last year the col- 
leges and seminaries gave forty thousand dollare 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 293 

for the promotion of the work. The intention 
is — and it is not unreasonable — that in the 
lifetime of this generation the whole world shall 
know the name of its Lord and Redeemer. They 
expect it. Meantime missionary literature is re- 
ceiving systematic study, that men may know 
the work to which they are setting their hands. 
General Armstrong said, with his usual sagacity, 
that it is easier to get men than monej^ But for 
this enterprise the money will come. We are pre- 
paring a generation of givers. I mark that the 
Day of Pentecost, which promised the young men, 
culminated in money enough for all the wants of 
the new community. 

There is more to tell. The Christian Associa- 
tions have established themselves in all lands, 
and are in fellowship, nation with nation. They 
are in the colleges of the world, and these are 
now united. In August, 1895, at the old Castle 
of Vadstena, on Lake Wettern, in Sweden, there 
was a conference attended by men from America, 
Britain, Germany, Scandinavip., and from mission 
countries strictly so called, to consider the union 
of the unions of the world. The result was the 
World's Student Christian Federation. Seven 
hundred student associations are included in this 
union, which reaches India and Ceylon, China and 
Japan, Australasia and South Africa. Its design 



294 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

is to unite the Christian students of all nations, 
and so far as it is possible to win all other students, 
and by this means to give Christ and his teaching 
to the world, in the confidence that if He is lifted 
up He will draw all men to Himself. Universi- 
ties have often been the source of religious life, 
the centres of religious movements, and it will 
be so again. Students are accessible to students. 
There is a fellowship between college men which 
is natural and practical. They are a guild. A 
student in India or China is the friend of the 
student from England or America. The thought 
and life of the newer world will reach the older 
lands through the doors of the college, and by the 
hearts of young men which have felt the hearts of 
their fellows. A recent foreign tour in the interest 
of this movement led to twenty-two countries and 
a hundred and forty-four schools and colleges. 
More than fifty-five hundred delegates were met, 
of whom thirty-three hundred represented three 
hundred and eight higher institutions of learning. 
At a Christian conference in India there were 
fifteen hundred delegates, and they were keen, 
bright men. Let it be understood that this band- 
ing and enlisting of students has for its immediate 
end the extension of Christianity over the world. 
It is Home Mission work. Christian students are 
to evangelize their own countries. It is the work 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 295 

of men who have an inherited respect for all that 
is good in their national faith, who are in sympathy 
with their people and devoted to their country. 

The work is entirely in unison with that which 
has prepared the way for it. The veterans will 
see their labor rewarded. Sowers and reapers 
will rejoice together. The undertaking is vast 
and difficult, but the power which moves in it is 
patient and resistless. There is here an advance 
which dignifies the century. Its look is forward. 
It has time in its hand and courage in its heart. 
It holds the future. 

It may be asked if Christian work is needed 
abroad where nations have their own religion. It 
is reported that there are fifty million slaves in 
Africa to-day, held by savages. Five hundred 
thousand die each year under this cruel life. 
They are taken in battle, and in trade. Slaves 
are current money. Parents barter their children, 
and children provide for their parents by selling 
them. The owners are religious. They give their 
slaves in sacrifice to their gods. When they are 
hungry they eat them. Oh, yes, they have a re- 
ligion of their own ! What right have foreigners 
to meddle with it? Some young Americans, 
without much regard for the religious privileges 
and pleasures of the slave land, have gone out 
there to make their homes, thinking to change 



296 THE CHGISTIAN FORCES 

the social customs of the people. Conscious of a 
divine life within them, they propose to impart it. 
A small piece of leaven goes a long way when 
once it gets into the meal. A thousand miles off 
its influence is less evident. If suffering is the 
same thing in Africa as in Cuba, just now we 
favor this intervention, and all the more that it 
goes with the Cross, and not the sword. 

How noble is all this uprising of young life ! 
Every profession here is full, and wiU easily be 
kept full by those who have no call to go abroad. 
But it is a fine ambition which ranges beyond a 
pent up Utica. These young men and women 
are free. No traditions detain them. They are 
committed to nothing but the Truth. They have 
one Lord, and Him alone they call Master. They 
bear many names, but one is supreme. They have 
the ardor of youth, with the discipline of study. 
They are the soldiers of a young leader. The 
world is theirs if they want it, and they do want 
it. They follow the cross in the sky, and will 
conquer. 

My Knights are sworn to vows 
Of utter hardihood, utter gentleness, 
And, loving, utter faithfulness in love, 
And uttermost obedience to the King. 

President Eliot explains the concern which 
universities feel for the permanence of religious 



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THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 297 

institutions : " Universities exist to advance sci- 
ence, to keep alive philosophy and poetry, and to 
draw out and cultivate the highest powers of the 
human mind. Now, science is always face to face 
with God, philosophy brings all its issues into the 
one word — duty ; poetry has its culmination in a 
hymn of praise, and a prayer is the transcendent 
effort of intelligence." It is admirably said. The 
well-chosen words ask of us an unlimited exten- 
sion. It is in the Christian life they will have 
their liberty. If it is well to be face to face with 
God, then is the science which Christ taught, 
wherein men see God, of inestimable worth. If 
duty is a supreme word, duty as Christ taught 
it, with his precepts and in his life, comes with 
profoundest meaning and authority. If praise is 
comely and to be everywhere rendered, the gift 
of Christ, of his love, of Himself, is the inspira- 
tion of the loftiest and sweetest songs. If prayer 
is the " transcendent effort of intelligence," then 
it is to learn of Christ, and to take to itself the 
deepest emotions of the soul, in penitence, thank- 
fulness, faith, and the desire for God. 

Christianity would breathe through the uni- 
versity, through the soul of every teacher and 
every scholar, " the power of an endless life." 
Knowledge would be higher, ambition nobler, life 
more Divine. The glory of scholai*ship is in its 



298 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

use ; the highest glory is the highest use. Noth- 
ing will " draw out and cultivate the highest 
powers of the human mind " so well as the Spirit 
and the teaching of the Truth and the Life, who 
brings to the mind the largest incitement and up- 
lifting, and makes known the highest knowledge, 
not otherwise attainable, and gives to all knowl- 
edge the delight of holy service. Christ takes away 
nothing good, and withholds nothing which is to 
be desired. 

All this which has been said enters into the 
thought and plan of the young Christians who 
have devoted their life to the service of Christ 
in the world for which He gave Himself. One 
part of their work has been presented. There 
are many other parts under different names, but 
with the same design. The men are well known 
and highly esteemed. By business methods, by 
enterprise, by sincerity, by hard work, by faith 
and love, they have made themselves a power in 
the world ; a power which increases from year to 
year. 

Think how very largely the young men and 
women, the boys and girls, of the land are united 
for Christian service. They are trained in this. 
I do not know that everything they have done 
has shown the wisdom of age. That would not 
be desirable. It is the privilege of youth to have 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 299 

a hopeful daring in feeling and action. They 
study and are taught, but the grand aim is the 
Christ life, and He pleased not Himself. To- 
morrow they will be men and women. They are 
the future. They cannot be counted ; they can- 
not be diverted. One could almost smile at fears, 
and warnings, and sad prophecies, and the proffer 
of strange beliefs, imported dreams, exhausted 
mysteries. The men of to-morrow hear nothing, 
care nothing, for all this. Why, the future is 
here ! Christianity moves quietly, steadily for- 
ward. It has already taken possession of the next 
fifty years. The boy can be trusted. We re- 
member how finely he came to the rescue when 
the hungry multitude gathered around Christ and 
there was no bread to give them. When He 
worked one of his signs He had something to 
begin with. That day He had nothing. A boy 
was there, with a few barley cakes and small 
fishes, which his foresight had brought for his 
ever-recurring condition. He gave them up, — 
I do not know why except that he was a boy, 
— and in the Lord's hands they became a feast, 
and more. It is true still; the boy holds the 
loaves. By his wealth and his consent the 
world is to be fed. Already he has placed his 
gift in the Teacher's hands. The bread is pro- 
vided. The people will not be sent into their 



300 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

villages. The proportions are not discouraging 
— one boy, five barley loaves, two fishes, and five 
thousand men, beside women and children. I 
think the terms are not against us, even with the 
twelve men added. We, too, have Christ. 

If the claim for Christianity which has been 
asserted is well founded, if it is the Divine method 
for the recalling of men, then it must prevaiL 
We need energy, enterprise ; to invest ourselves 
in our plans ; to vitalize our forms ; to prove that 
the new is more efficient than the old. When tliis 
comes the world will feel it. Of one thing we 
can see the evidence at any hour : the power of 
the faith by which the man is brought into contact 
with Christ, so that the Divine life is breathed 
into his life. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, 
and by his grace the taking possession of the 
life of God. That this may be done, Christ should 
be known; that the soul may be opened before 
Him, and that He may impart his own nature. 
" With a vital warmth which is ascending " the 
new life is taken, and lived into clearer light. 
The one essential thing is, that the life of the 
Son of Man be given to men by the Spirit of life. 

What is claimed for this faith is found in it. 
It will take a man who is selfish, without regard 
for God or man, and will make him thoughtful, 
generous, upright, with a prayer in his heart and 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 301 

a song upon his lips. It is not his own work, 
though it is with his desire. It comes with his 
submission to the will of Christ. But it is the 
work of the Divine Spirit in his spirit. There is 
another man, with a new life, and one which lasts. 
I give this at the best ; but it is the best which it 
is prepared to do. All this has been done. It is 
the commonplace among men who teach the way 
of life in the cure of souls. There are variations, 
but the method itself, and the result itself, are the 
same the world over. It would be safe to assure 
any man who will thus commit himself to Christ 
and his Spirit that he will become what has been 
termed " a new man." If this can be effected, as 
it has been, what remains but that every man be 
taught these things, and brought where they will 
become true in his own experience ? The work 
of recovery which is necessary is already accom- 
plished in myriads of souls. What shall we 
strive for but its completion ? The work needs 
to be done. Nothing else is doing it. This is 
doing it. The future is provided for. What do 
we need more ? Force. 

It is not designed to put man back where he 
was. These years have been too costly, and we 
must have the good of them. A man is taken in 
his strength, with all he has acquired, with all he 
has learned, and while he bows before the incar- 



302 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

nate Love he is invested with new energy, a new 
purpose, a true heart, a new commandment, a clear 
light; and thus purified, invigorated, directed, 
he is set in the right path and led down the ages. 
In this world, in any world, he lives in the new- 
ness of life. If this is the Divine way, this 
should be the result. If this is the result, it 
should be the Divine way. It is the result. 

It is a matter of quantity now. The problem 
is no longer difficult, and it is not beyond our 
reach. The loom which will weave a piece of 
cloth can cover the globe. It is a question of 
power, not of looms. What has been done in 
Jerusalem can be accomplished in Galilee. Naza- 
reth can witness the works of Capernaum. We 
have finished experiments. These are the days 
of repetition. 

If I were preaching, I should urge some points 
more strongly. Even now, let me add a few con- 
siderations which may enforce what has been 
written. In this day when the scholarly and 
scientific spirit prevails, if a free and generous 
temper is to rule, Christianity deserves the honest 
thought of every man. It has its philosophy, 
which is entitled to respect. It is not a matter 
of emotion, though it engages the deepest feel- 
ing. It is not an experience alone, though it 
enters into all life. It has its history which is well 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 303 

defined, and its rational principles which are 
readily discerned. It reaches into the unseen and 
infinite. It must do this, or stop. But it is 
concerned with the present, its duties, relations, 
necessities, opportunities. It offers itself to this 
world and here makes proof of its strength. Any 
appeal can make promises and safely postpone 
the day of payment. If it puts this far enough 
off, it can maintain its credit. Any system of 
religion which expects to be believed should begin 
all its work at once and where it can be tested. 
For it is in this, as really as in any sphere, that 
religion is needed. Christianity begins here, and 
at a moment's notice. It does not complete its 
work, for that stretches on forever. It gives 
to-day what to-day requires, and never ceases to 
give. We do not know all it means perfectly. 
That were too much for the first hundred years, 
but the Divine care which seeks us and receives 
us never gives us up. It does not supplant our 
energy, but employs it. It permits and encour- 
ages our personal intercourse with the Creator. 

There is more in religion than being blessed : 
there is God. Our spiritual nature is enlarged 
and elevated as we walk with Him. The mercan- 
tile considerations which at times enter into our 
views of religion are not creditable. If we are 
true men we desire to be with God, with our mind 



304 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

and heart fixed on Him. When we are there we 
breathe out our desires and construct our life in 
the simplicity of children. 

The philosophy of the Christian life requires 
that we live in the thought of the Son of Man ; in 
his thought of us, which is certain, and in our 
thought of Him ; and that will keep the steady 
inflowing of the Divine life. This cannot be taken 
once for all. The prayer is exact when it says 
" our daily bread." The true bread from heaven 
must be " daily bread." It is never to leave our 
mind that the Christian is one who belongs to 
Christ ; who draws his life from Him ; who believes 
Him and believes in Him ; who finds freedom in 
obedience. " Where the Spirit of the Lord is there 
is liberty." 

Many excellent traits belong to the Christian, 
but are not confined to him, and do not describe 
him. He is more, in that he is the disciple and 
apostle of Him from whom the name comes. To 
use the name Christian without reference to Him 
is to break the laws of language. There is no 
narrowness in defining the term, for any one can 
bear it who wishes. Christianity embraces all the 
virtues and holds them in one design. Life is not 
made in sections. Its method is simple, beautiful. 
Divine. Our Father is spirit, and we are there- 
fore spirit. This is our lineage. Then comes the 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 305 

honest life, true to itself and its source in the 
Spirit, constantly coming to us, constantly re- 
ceived and lived. To teach the Divine goodness 
and mercy to every man in the world is the privi- 
lege of those who have learned the truth. Thus 
the kingdom of heaven is coming on the earth. 
For themselves and for the world men are to live 
in Christ, because the Divine life in the fulness of 
its grace and truth is his. Let it be remembered 
that it is Himself Christ gives, not his influence. 
It is himself the man gives, not his confidence. 
Two lives meet and the one prevails over the 
other and persuades it into a new nature. The 
union is for life, and life is endless. An English 
writer calls it " the essential weakness of all mere 
systems of morality, and of most, if not all, other 
religions, that they confine themselves to pointing 
out what the facts of life ought to be, and make 
no provision whatever for dealing with facts as 
they are." The Son of Man came into the world 
knowing it perfectly and longing to serve it. He 
came down from his home among the hills and 
dealt with the facts which surrounded Him. He 
went into the misery and sin of the earth, into its 
hypocrisy and oppression. He offered freedom. 
He gave the Truth. He taught righteousness. He 
told men that He had come to save them and that 
He must die in doing it. This was his passion, 



306 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

and He never faltered. There is no explanation 
of this life but his own, and He explains the 
thought of the Father. One is startled at Doctor 
Holmes' cry, " How can God bear it ! This ball 
of anguish forever spinning before Him, and the 
great hum of its misery going up to his ears." 
He does not bear it. In his Son He comes into 
it, and offers to every man his hand to bring him 
out of it, and every man shall speedily escape 
from it who wills to have it so. The pain at the 
world's misery is lightened by the joy of taking it 
away. Already where his mercy has been carried 
we account it a very pleasant thing to live, and 
heaven itself rarely attracts one away. The world 
is not a " ball of anguish ; " and it can have less 
misery any day it decrees it. We are standing in 
the love of God when we believe in a highway 
out of sorrow and sin. " I am the way," He said. 
I have presented to you the purpose and prom- 
ise of Christ. I wish to give a resistless influence 
to all I have written by letting other men say it. 
This truth must have its proof in the life, and it 
may be seen in life which we honor even now that 
it is removed from our sight. I name two or 
three men of exalted character, whose sincerity 
and wisdom are unquestioned, whose philosophy 
is in the foremost thinking of scholars ; who were 
sagacious, careful, scientific, critical, and who 



THE CBBISTIAN FORCES 307 

could not well be mistaken in questions of per- 
sonal experience, and to whom pretence was im- 
possible. The religious principles of such men 
deserve respect because they are such men. There 
are many of whom my words are true who have 
tested Christ and his teaching under varied con- 
ditions, and whose faith in Him dignified their 
noblest years. I think of the president of a great 
college, Theodore Woolsey, a man whose presence 
was a benison as he crossed the yard. He was 
well trained in life, a lawyer, theologian, profes- 
sor. He was an eminent Greek scholar, and one 
of the revisers of the New Testament. He lived 
in the present, familiar with all times. He wrote 
on international law, political science, civil lib- 
erty, socialism. He kept his life young among 
young men, and he built no wall around his 
thought. He believed in his soul. He kept it 
open before spiritual light and grace. He let it 
range the ages. He was an old man when he 
reached his " time of graduation," as he gently 
called it. Then, honored by a countless number 
of scholars, he ascended to other, perhaps not 
higher, service. Was the opinion of this man on 
subjects with which he was well acquainted of 
decided value ? Now, this man believed, on liter- 
ary and personal grounds, that the four biogra- 
phies of Christ are trustworthy. He was probably 



308 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

uncertain over some point in a Greek manuscript ; 
but he believed the record. He went much far- 
ther. He believed this so thoroughly that he ac- 
cepted the teaching of Christ, and held it to be 
the Truth. He looked to Him for guidance, for 
knowledge, for righteousness of life. He trusted 
the promises he read, and believed that Christ 
would win the world. He did more than this, 
much more. If he had been asked — he said it 
without being asked — what highest desire he 
had for the thousands of young men who revered 
him, and whose lives were for four years and 
longer in his keeping, he would have replied with 
all the solemnity which many and industrious 
days could impart : I would that every young man 
who enters the gates of this college should be the 
thorough-going disciple of Jesus Christ, receiving 
his words as they are written in the New Testa- 
ment, and seeking his Spirit as the only inspira- 
tion. 

Change the form, but not much, and this is true 
of our Harvard saint, whose thought of Christ has 
been already told. To him were given a lofty 
character, wide learning, broad influence, a large 
part among men. He was called to be the teacher 
of young men ; and from his words, even more 
from the man himself, they took lessons in life, 
and they desired to live. To talk with him was 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 309 

to respect him and to respect yourself. He car- 
ried many in his sympathies, and all the long way 
he was telling men to be the scholars and the true 
friends of Christ ; to trust Him perfectly, and to 
make up life entirely by his rules. 

With him stands my own President at Harvard, 
James Walker ; the wise man, the great man ; the 
writer and teacher of philosophy; the vigorous 
preacher ; who made the reading of the Bible at 
morning prayere something to be talked about 
when we had left the chapel ; who adorned the 
truth he taught. I can hear to-day the impressive, 
roll of his strong voice, intense in its honesty: 
" Young men, you have much more need of religion 
than religion has of you." Those who recognize 
the man will mark how well he described himself 
in these words : " There is no ignoring, there is 
no concealing, the inconveniences, the infirmities, 
which steal over us as we descend into the vale of 
years. . . . It is a great thing to be surrounded 
by kind friends and all the endearments and ap- 
pliances of a happy home. But greater than all, 
*to know Christ, and the power of his resurrec- 
tion,' as a hope full of immortality." With this 
hope an old man still has " something to live for, 
and something to die for." 

The men come rapidly when we start to think 
upon them. It was not long ago — it was very 



310 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

long ago — that one walked among us whom all 
men honored. It was a stately presence. It needed 
to be for the soul it sheltered. What man has 
drawn to himself the homage of the place as did 
he who never sought applause ? He knew no 
boundaries of heart or help. He was the minister 
of Trinity ; but no church could confine him. He 
held the souls of men in thrall. Every one knew 
the way to his open door. His years were not 
many, but they were large. His words were in 
all lands, his voice at the ends of the earth. Yet 
chiefly here where we saw him every day was he 
honored and loved. It was a rare fame, unsullied 
as he rose to high station. How great he was ! 
How good ! What made it all ? Was it learning, 
eloquence, kindness, humanity, a large manhood 
in rare opportunities? These indeed were his. 
But these were not the man. No one knows him 
who has not gone beneath all this, and found him. 
He was a Christian. He profoundly believed in 
Christ. He lived with Him, in Him. He walked 
in his light and worked in his strength. He was 
large-hearted, but there was not a desire in the 
whole range of his feeling which was so strong, 
persistent, universal, as the longing that every man 
whom he could by any means persuade should live 
in the grace of Christ's words, and be guided, puri- 
fied, ennobled, by his indwelling Spirit. If he could 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 311 

consent to any honor, and could choose what it 
should be, he would place above all other distinc- 
tion the glory of standing before the world a wit- 
ness to the truth of the religion which he taught 
and lived. 

I do not claim that Christianity is true because 
these men believed it, and in their lives put it 
to the proof. But I do claim that it is entitled to 
reverent and hopeful study, and to personal alle- 
giance, when it has commended itself to the con- 
science and the life, as these teachers say that it 
will. I could enlarge the catalogue of names 
almost without bounds, and from all the ways of 
life. But what need of this? 

These witnesses, multiplied by thousands of 
intelligent and honest men, encourage the confi- 
dence which comes with the very presence of 
Christ and in every word He taught, that this 
religion will meet men in their want, teach them 
what they need to learn, empower them for 
that which they have to do. No want has yet 
been discovered to which Christianity does not 
effectively address itself. It is distinctly ethical, 
and the principles of morality are the same the 
world over. The Ten Commandments, the two 
commandments, are valid on every spot the sun 
shines upon. There is no place where they do not 
make for virtue, happiness, peace, helpfulness, and 



312 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

length of days. It does more than teach duty. 
It provides the motive and desire to do it, and 
it furnishes the moral strength. It is life. Be- 
yond the doing, this religion is religious. It 
knows God. We cannot fail to notice the virility 
of this religion. This is found in its spirit and its 
requirements ; it is seen in the practical evidence 
of its power which is everywhere. It makes men. 
There is not a dreamy, speculative line in all its 
precepts. It is gentle and kindly, but rugged 
and solid. Its moral and spiritual energy is man- 
ifest. Everywhere it gives vigor to the will, force 
to the affections, temper to the soul, and makes 
the conscience robust. It excepts nothing from 
its authority, not even eating and drinking. It 
excludes nothing from recognition, not even a cup 
of water or a drop of oil. In its idea all of life 
is sacred. It writes on the bells of the horses the 
inscription on the high priest's helmet. It finds 
room in its service and its records for St. Paul 
and Dorcas both. All this is religion, but it is 
not the whole of religion, which must stand in 
the thought of God, in unity with Him, in love, 
in trust, in the desire and intent to do the things 
which please Him, and because they please Him. 
When conduct parts with God, it is no longer 
religious. Thus religion makes life more inter- 
esting and honorable at the same time that it 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 313 

unites it with the Divine life ; and it makes the 
thoughts and feelings more exalted when it en- 
shrines them in the common duties which it 
requires and rewards, and which the world needs. 
To make all this real and assured the Son of Man 
lives in men. They know his presence and they 
offer it the love which fosters piety and yields 
obedience in good works. In his own words of 
friendliness, they sup with Him and He with 
them. Faith, Hope, Love abide. They have 
immortality and more. Eternal life is more. It is 
offered to every man, forced on no one. Christ 
did not come to destroy, but to save, and He does 
not destroy life in the act of saving it ; removing 
its liberty to secure its happiness. His gifts are 
from freedom to freedom. Life is to live. The 
breath of the Almighty was not given to be with- 
drawn. Our days are not to end in a vanishing 
point. We do not hold them at the will of change 
and chance. The Son of Man gave Himself, not 
to perfect seventy yeai*s, but to perfect life. He 
restored man because man was to live. We take 
the grandeur away if we think this is not so. For 
the Creator to withdraw man to Himself is to lose. 
From everlasting He had the life and He added 
man. By this personality He gained. To bring 
this to an end would be to cancel his own thought 
and destroy his own work. He would lose a child. 



314 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

If He takes the man's life back into his life, there 
is no more life than before, and the man is gone. 
There is less to love. " Not vitality, but person- 
ality, is the witness for immortality," Asa Gray 
wrote. Christ came to make pure the enduring 
heart of man, and to make his life like God's. 
There was inducement to this in the endless years. 
All the way the scale is Divine. We think we 
were " not made to die," and God has made us. 
He will make life a blessing in the Son. There 
is a tradition that St. Paul wished he had met 
Virgil. We may share his regret. I wish that 
Christ could have met Buddha. He would have 
enlightened him, fostered all that was noble and 
kind in him, lifted his burden of sorrow and his 
pain for the world, carried him in heart and hope 
past Nirvana into Paradise. Life would have 
been a blessing to be cherished, and immortality 
an unspeakable joy. I wish He could have seen 
the man so greatly loved, and have taken him for 
a disciple and apostle ! 

We have a natural interest in the world, and in 
whatever will help it to know itself and enjoy its 
life. It is not a deserted world. If we call it 
lost, as there is warrant for doing, we must also 
call it found. If we think it prodigal, and well 
we may, it has not wandered out of the care of 
Him who made it. The work of the Divine life 



THE CHRISTIAN FORGES 315 

in the world has gone far, but it is far from com- 
pletion. Many difficulties are surmounted, but 
others remain, and they are real, whatever be their 
form, however slight they seem. If the coral in- 
sects built the Dolomites, it is only good climbing 
which surmounts them. We say that the world 
is open before the messengers of God. Not quite. 
They can go into any land, but not into every 
heart. The call "From Greenland's icy moun- 
tains " is not more strong than when Hans Egede 
answered it two hundred years ago. Nevertheless 
the Divine faith is advancing, and the Divine 
presence moves before it, cloud by day and fire 
by night. We plan for the world, but we cannot 
forget the need along our own streets, in our 
hovels and palaces, on the hills and by the 
streams. If the result were better here we should 
have more readiness to extend the good. There 
is a serious thought in the questions of an Ameri- 
can historian : " Christianity has conquered all 
the best races in history thus far. Now, can it 
conquer to the bottom, as it has already conquered 
to the top ? Can it bring the whole human fam- 
ily, its lowest peoples with its highest, into one 
common fold? Can it evangelize its own cities, 
going down into the cellars, up into the garrets, 
of its own heathens here at home ? Hard as the 
task may be, Christianity stands squarely com- 



316 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

mitted to it. What it can do may be known from 
what it has done." 

If things have been done by those bearing this 
name, which have had little of the spirit of the 
Teacher, we knew they were not of his bidding. 
We said the treasure is in earthen vessels, but we 
knew that the treasure was true. If we had con- 
fused vessel and treasure we had been careless, or 
worse. But always the faith itself can be found. 
The treasure is not to be hidden in vessels. The 
broken alabaster is to let the spikenard send out 
its fragrance. The box needs no cover, and the 
world needs the perfume. One may see at 
Naples a joint of pipe from Pompeii with the 
water still within it. You shake this and the 
water answers, but it cannot escape. It is a curi- 
osity, but not a benefit. Let the faith escape 
from men and schools and it will live. To live is 
the normal state of life, to live and to give life. 

The life of the Son of Man has not entrenched 
itself in castles and palaces, claiming regal honors, 
asserting political authority, and subduing kings. 
It has lived in meekness and gentleness ; teaching 
good-will, breathing out charity, healing, com- 
forting, restoring ; revealing God and calling men 
home. Whatever else appears, this reveals itself. 
It lives in this grace now. If we could agree to 
take this as the rule of life, the world would feel 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 817 

its power. The world, which gets too little help 
from stately institutions, would find its streets 
lighted by his presence and its waters levelled 
under his feet. I beg that Christ and his truth 
may not be judged by the things which men have 
done against which our humanity cries out. Let 
not those be overlooked in whom the spirit of 
Christ has done a more perfect work. There are 
men on whom the name of saint is not unbecom- 
ing; men and women in whom a high-minded 
charity has lived, who have made the world beau- 
tiful, and have lived in the presence of the Lord, 
in the power of his Spirit. May not Christianity 
be judged by its best? It has its best, of whom 
the world was not worthy, and they were its light 
— often solitary, as beacon lights are wont to be. 

The best is the real. There have been brave 
deeds, easily recalled ; great thoughts and forces. 
There was wonderful strength in the old forms of 
Christian belief which have lessened their power. 
They made God great and his sovereignty strong, 
and we need that work to-day. Calvinism " set 
its face against illusion and mendacity," as 
Froude says ; and it produced vigorous characters, 
equal to large achievements. That system will 
not return, but the virtue which was in it cannot 
perish. 

Who shall call men and churches to the way of 



318 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

life, and bring us in contentment around the one 
name? Perhaps no one. Yet in some form the 
truth of Christ is to find men and to save them. I 
sometimes fancy that such a man is coming. Not 
yet. The time is not ready for him. If he comes, 
it will be in Spirit and in power ; he will find the 
good and value it; he will give honor to the 
churches and their service ; he will be tolerant 
and generous ; he will not strive nor cry, but 
quietly, with Divine power, he will persuade, and 
the conscience of men will approve, and they will 
receive the Divine life for themselves, for the 
country, for the world. He shall live. In his 
heart " shall dwell visions of a world redeemed, 
and the divine passion to redeem it." High au- 
thority bids us " Beware when God lets loose a 
prophet." Beware when God does not let loose 
a prophet ! Ecclesiastical matters are shaken ; but 
much order abides in strength. Of late there has 
been quick and bold thinking; but we know 
where we are. This is all preparatory, not final. 
I see no reason why we could not reconstruct our 
forms of belief. Such work has been done many 
times. It can only be done by men in whom the life 
lives. We have quantities of material : gold, silver, 
precious stones ; and perhaps the rest. But the one 
foundation standeth sure. We ought to be able 
to build anew. Perhaps we ought to be willing. 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 319 

But what the world needs first, and to the end, 
is God. Not God in the heavens, and in the past, 
alone. But God here, and ready by "the man 
whom he hath ordained " to repeat and enlarge 
the work recorded in Genesis, and many times 
promised in the New Testament, and to create 
a man in his own image, with his own heart, a 
new man in the Son of Man. A revolt against 
things we do not esteem is of little value unless 
it leads us from fretting to faith, and brings us to 
the real life. The appeal to the past needs to 
reach to the beginning. What did they know 
who stood near the Apostles which is not in our 
hands ? The years since have added little but 
experience, with reasoning, defining, asserting. Of 
the merits of their work we are judges. The New 
Testament is in our hands and we can read it in 
English and Greek. We do well to preserve our 
respect for the Christian thinking which has pre- 
ceded us. There is wisdom so old that we are chil- 
dren in its presence. Solid, substantial, scholarly, 
scientific thought distinguishes the Christian cen- 
turies, and is nowhere more marked than in the 
domain of religious truth. We do well to keep 
before us the learning of other days, and then do 
our own thinking. These years with their in- 
crease of all knowledge must have given light to 
the truths. It would be strange if religious truth 



320 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

alone were excluded from the learning. It is not 
that new facts have been added, but new light 
through life. The truths need to be stated in 
the terms of the present day, and in the propor- 
tions which life now requires. This will keep us 
in sympathy with the saints, in their feeling if not 
in its expression; and soon there will be a re- 
sponse in our own hearts. This personal study 
of the truth we shall not deny to those who in- 
herit our words, and we may ask the same free- 
dom for ourselves. 

I have one thing to add in the way of confirma- 
tion by personal witness. I have many times said 
that the Divine force, the Divine life, is now given 
to men tlirough Jesus Christ, — " I am come that 
they might have life," — that whosoever consents 
to receive this from Him shall have it. Is this 
true? It is an interesting question, even aside 
from its importance, else I should not set it here. 
It is more than thirty years since it became my 
daily life to serve under this belief. As the min- 
ister of a large parish, in close connection with the 
world, and especially with colleges, I have had 
what seems to me an ample opportunity to deter- 
mine whether the Divine life is really bestowed in 
this way. I have now to say to you that I am 
certain it is bestowed in this way ; that whoever 
opens his heart to the Son of Man, and goes on to 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 321 

obey Him, receives life, with light and strength ; 
a new and living force, which shall make his life 
true, generous. Divine. This is more than the 
imparting of a new purpose, a noble desire, a long- 
ing for an ideal. It is the giving of life ; life for 
the heart, the conscience, the will; the life which 
makes a new man. It does not make a full-grown 
man ; but a child rather, whom it brings up into 
manhood. Bear with me for a moment. In these 
yeai-s which are no longer few I have many times 
seen the spirit of a man opened quickly before the 
Son of Man. He has always come in. He comes 
in whenever the man opens the door. It is as 
sure as the coming in of the outer air. I have 
never known it otherwise. 

I am willing to trust to this any one whose well- 
being is of infinite worth in my thought. I am 
rejoiced when any young man whose heart I have 
reached goes out from Harvard or Yale with this 
truth to inspire his life and to be his message to 
the world. Here it is, so far as I depend upon 
the warrant of experience, that I have justified 
myself in writing of the Divine force in the life 
of the world. The force which reaches a new 
man, and by repeating this reaches a new world, 
may well be called Divine. I believe in the Son of 
Man. Before me He stands, the Man of history, 
young, erect, brave. He wears no halo but his 



322 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

manly love ; with form well defined, the outline 
sharp against the sky, and the whole being rounded 
with grace, with the eye clear and gentle as the 
light, the ear sensitive to a child's thought, a sin- 
ner's sigh, the hands strong enough to turn a 
world, gentle enough to wipe away a tear. He 
stands the real man, the perfect man, in whom is 
the fulness of the Divine life, so that the willing 
man He touches lives, and bears his image and 
likeness. 

If that prophet should ever come his word would 
be simple, but forcible. He would open the New 
Testament and read of the Son of Man ; and he 
would call us to devote ourselves to Him ; to be- 
lieve his words, and to take them as the rule of 
our life ; to receive his spirit, that it may control 
our feeling and thought. He would bid us to 
trust in Him and in his grace to have eternal life. 
More than this he would say for enforcement. 
But the one thing from which he would never 
swerve is this — that Jesus Christ is the Love of 
God, in the world redeeming and in heaven en- 
throned. " I determined not to know anything 
among you, save Jesus Christ and Him cruci- 
fied," were the words of a prophet, will be the 
words of the coming prophet, if he comes. The 
world will hear and believe, and will find itself 
and its Creator. 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 323 

Does all this seem far away? No, this has be- 
gun. It was finished that night at Bethlehem, for 
a divine purpose has its fulfilment in itself. We 
have seen the end, and now wait for its unfolding. 
These dull days cannot last much longer. The 
former times are not better than those which are 
at hand. We are slowly regaining the spirit of 
Christianity in our abounding service. Useful- 
ness ranks higher than ever, or anywhere, before. 
Men are thinking of Christ, talking, writing, read- 
ing of Him. He is in the mind. Religious truths 
are a common theme, and diversity is a hopeful 
sign of life. Christianity is young and the cur- 
rents of its life are strong. It was never so great 
in confidence as in these earnest days. It has 
broadened with all knowledge. It keeps pace with 
discovery and geography. It intends to bring the 
world to its Lord. Its uncompromising faith is 
pledged to this. It works in the power of the 
Holy Ghost, the Eternal Spirit. It devotes to 
this divine end its best treasure, the young life in 
which to-morrow lives. It will disovm itself and 
its origin when it contracts its design. We have 
made proof of Christianity, and we know that it 
can do all that is needed in New England and 
South America, from Great Britain to Melanesia. 
David Livingstone and Coleridge Patteson died in 
full knowledge of its way and work, and an utter 



324 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

belief in it. John Paton among the Christians 
whom he made from cannibals, by this grace, 
knows and believes. The knowledge of such men 
is worth tons of opinion. Theories must make 
obeisance before results. Things seem to be ready 
for the spirit of truth and life. In the coming of 
Christ is the Divine pledge of the completion of 
his redemptive purpose. That we shall see greater 
things than these is still his word. He is the liv- 
ing promise, and He will be kept. Not in what 
men are doing, but in what He is doing, is our 
confidence. No one versed in his teaching can 
fail to be brave. Who love Him best, best love 
their fellow-men, and are bold for their sake. His 
work is not to be done in a day. It is not the 
transfer of an outward allegiance ; the changing 
of a banner for the cross. It is deep, in the heart 
of a man ; the overturning of his purpose, the con- 
trolling of his life. Every man created anew be- 
comes the minister to his neighbor somewhere. 
God is in it all. This is his will. Our reliance 
is on Him. The Son of God is " the transcendent 
Person of history ; and to be transcendent here is 
to be transcendent everywhere, for religion is the 
supreme factor in the organizing and the regulat- 
ing of our personal and collective life." The past 
inspires us. Lecky had studied the course of the 
world when he wrote of the three years of Christ's 



THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 325 

life, that the record of them " has done more to 
soften and regenerate mankind than all the dis- 
quisitions of philosophers, and than all the exhor- 
tations of moralists." The historian of morality 
gave his testimony, that "It was reserved for 
Christianity to present to the world an ideal char- 
acter, which through all the changes of eighteen 
centuries has filled the hearts of men with an im- 
passioned love." It is a glorious consummation to 
which we look. What is it ? The answer is con- 
tinually upon our lips. The air is hallowed with 
the promise which answers to our request. We 
speak in familiar words the end and glory of crea- 
tion. We say The Lord's Prayer. The end is in 
it. He taught it, we learned it, long ago. It is 
the cry of the centuries ; in many tongues, in one 
desire. The child bends at his mother's knee or 
ever sleep touches his innocent eyes, and lisps as 
she has told him, " Thy kingdom come." In every 
college the student as he closes his books to-night 
and calls home his thoughts, and in manly pur- 
pose feels the meaning of his life, finds no truer 
expression of it than the prayer of his boyhood, 
" Thy kingdom come." 

The priest chants it at the altar. It is spoken 
by the merchant who has commerce with eternal 
things ; by the lawyer who knows the holiness of 
law, aware of one Law-giver ; the physician whose 



326 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

ministry is health ; the man of science whose un- 
fettered thought moves in an open world ; the 
mother, kinswoman with her of Bethlehem, who 
would extend the sanctity of her home ; the sol- 
dier without fear and without reproach ; the sailor 
who roams from clime to clime with merchandise 
which cannot be valued with silver, exchanging 
thought for thought and adding life to life. " Thy 
kingdom come," they say. " Thy will be done ; " 
and in the space beneath the heavens the words 
gather in a cloud of desire ; floating quietly above 
us, illumined, shaped in a holy city with jewelled 
walls ; and under the cloud, here upon the earth, 
moves on the life, with its word, its touch, its 
breath; praying, and bringing nearer and more 
near the longed-for consummation, the crowning 
of all hope, the passion of the saints, the fulness 
of life, the new creation perfected, the marriage 
of the Son of Man to the New Jerusalem. We 
said it when we were children, we are doing it now, 
— " Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done." 

No better words were found to write upon the 
wall of Harvard, the mother's blessing for her sons 
as year by year they go out to do their manly ser- 
vice in the world ; against the names of her sons 
who glorified their learning with devotion, and 
gave their lives for the country, — there were 
found no better words than these from one who 



THE CHBISTIAN FOBCES 327 

knew duty and held it more than length of days ; 
" They that be wise shall shine as the brightness 
of the firmament ; and they that turn many to 
righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." 

We are working for this. Many things are 
ready. The wedding only waits the guests. 
Blessed is he who summons them ! The house is 
builded and furnished. Our preparation is on a 
goodly scale. Temples, cathedrals, churches invite 
worshippers. The kingdom will find its palaces 
prepared. The stupendous temples of India are 
ready for the Son of Man. The gods of many 
arms will give place to Him who held children 
against his heart, and blessed them there. The 
walls of Egypt's sanctuaries can quickly be re- 
stored. The land of the Nile sheltered Him 
when He was a child. He will reward it with the 
goodwill of a man. At Philse already the cross 
is cut into the door-post. There has been Chris- 
tian worship at Luxor, and there might be to-day. 
Prayer might even now be said among the pillars 
of Karnak with the majesty of their memory, the 
heaviness of their silences. I noticed that when 
the Moslem tore the cross from the door of St. 
Sophia he left the marks of the nails, and they can 
go back into their old places. They are to go 
back. The powers of heaven will restore the 
cross. It has been needed in these suffering 



328 THE CHRISTIAN FORCES 

months. It will shed its light upon all the Ori- 
ent and beyond, circling the globe. It will never 
fall upon a man whom it cannot help. The light 
is spreading, slowly. The sun is in it. Let us 
wait ; but let us look. The dawn reaches toward 
the day. The day will be forever, but the morn- 
ing will be here. We close our eyes and have the 
vision : 

Where faint and far, 
Along the tingling desert of the sky, 
Beyond the circle of the conscious hills. 
Were laid in jasper-stone as clear as glass 
The first foundations of that new, near Day 
Which should be builded out of heaven to God. 



INDEX. 



Page 

Agassiz, Louis. 
his prayer at Penikese ... 45 

Altruism. 

a name for Christian service, 192 

Angels. 
their place 56 

Apostles, The. 

their devotion 245 

the later use of the name . 256 

Aryans. 
their idea of creation ... 89 

Associations, The Young 
Men's Christian. 

their strength 290 

in colleges 293 

international 293 

Aurelius, Marcus. 
his chai*acter 241 

Bacon, Eoger. 

his ability 253 

his superstition 253 

Bible, The. 
regarded as literature . . 6, 129 
the earliest chapters . 6, 18-22 
harmony with science, 17, 19, 20 

a book of nature 18 

high estimate of man ... 58 
value of, as authority . . .126 
the New Testament .... 132 

Brace, C. L. 
Gesta Christi 250 



Page 

Brahma. 

his time 98 

his teaching 98 

Britain. 
early religion of 273 

Brooks, Phillips. 
his testimony 309 

Buddha. 

his birth 99 

his life 99 

protected from evil .... 100 

his view of life 100 

Nirvana 100 

his view of man 100 

Buddhism 101, 102 

BUSHNELL. 

on the dignity of human 

nature 62 

Calendar, The. 

Dionysian 123 

its relation to Christianity . 123 
Calvinism. 

its strength 317 

Caste. 

in India 99 

Cato, The Elder. 

his character 241 

Causation. 

continuity of 35 

Christ. 

his birth used in the calendar, 118 



330 



INDEX 



Page 

Christ. 

biogi'aphies of 126 

in the Old Testament . . .132 
in the lives of his friends . 133 
in the Book of Acts . . . . 133 
known by St. Paul . . . . 134 

to be known now 137 

witness of the churches to . 139 
time of his coming .... 143 
his home at Nazareth , 146, 151 

his childhood 147 

his education 148 

first visit to the Temple . .149 

his baptism 152 

his first disciples 155 

his temptation 152 

the second Adam 153 

his miracle at Cana . . . .154 
the cleansing of the Temple, 155 
interview with Nicodemus . 155 
with the woman of Samai-ia, 156 

at Sychar , 158 

at the synagogue of Naza- 
reth 158 

his personality 159 

his mission 159, 161 

his transfiguration .... 160 
his cx'ucifixion . . . .160, 184 

his death 160, 185 

his relation to the Father . 171 
to men .... 173 

as the Shepherd 173 

his use of "My" . . . 174, 198 

as the vine 174 

as the Ci'eator 175 

the name Jesus 177 

Emmanuel . . .177 

Christ .... 177 

his Kingdom ..... 178, 187 

his entrance into Jerusalem, 183 

his teaching 190, 197 



Page 

Christ. 
his teaching of service . . . 192 
money . . . 193 
the prodigal, 200 

Avas the reality 201 

his miracles 202 

required faith 207 

required prayer 212 

required the Sabbath . . . 213 

effects of his life 221 

the power of his Love . . 223 
his confidence in his friends, 225 
the close of his life .... 239 
present preparation for . . 327 

Christianity. 

its meaning 136 

to be known now 136 

the spread of 247, 257 

its influence 249, 268 

present condition 261 

organizations 262 

effect of national changes, 270 
proof of its worth . 307-311, 320 

Christians. 

persecutions of 232 

teaching by the Spirit . . . 238 
their character desci'ibed . 259 

every one a force 261 

the name 304 

Churches. 
their testimony to Christ . 138 

Clark, N. G. 
his testimony to Christianity, 
269 

Conscience. 
its witness to God 48 

Creation. 

a new word 9 

the act of creation . . . . 9, 33 

eternal 12 

a beginning needed . . . . 13 



INDEX 



331 



Page 

Creation. 

Plato's account of 15 

God's delight in 16 

various accounts of . . . . 21 
spiritual in its origin . . . . 26 
of man 26, 30 

Death. 

its meaning and place ... 89 

Design. 

argument from 24 

Asa Gray on 44 

DiONYSIUS. 

his calendar 123 

Disciples, The. 

their devotion to Christ . . 222 

their fidelity 228 

Disobedience. 

its beginning 81 

reason for 86 

Duty. 

the ground of 65 

love is 67 

under evolution 69 

Hooker on 74 

Edwards, Jonathan. 

his consciousness of God . . 40 
Eliot, C. W. 

interest of universities in 
religious institutions . . 297 
Emerson, R. W. 

on duty 74 

England. 

influence of 286 

Erskine, Thomas. 

his consciousness of God . . 41 
Fetichism. 

defined 113 

Francis, Saint, of Assisi. 

his preaching to birds ... 72 
God. 

in the beginning . . . 6, 8, 11 



Page 

God. 
fellowship in his being ... 9 

self-revelation of 12 

his relation to creation . 14, 35 
a supreme moment with . . 16 

the only life 34, 63 

universal idea of 43 

witness of conscience ... 48 
not the author of evil ... 91 

Gray, Asa. 
the design in nature .... 44 

Hindoos. 
Maurice on 102 

Hitchcock, R. D. 
on superstition in religion, 107 
on the conquests of Christianity, 
315 

Holmes, O. W. 

on suffering in the world . 306 

Holy Spirit, The. 

at Pentecost 228 

his place and work .... 229 

Hooker, Richard. 
on duty .74 

Humming-bird. 
the life of 32 

India. 

the land 98 

Brahmans 98 

caste 99 

Buddhism . . . . . . 99, 101 

has no light for the world . 104 

Japan. 

Buddhism in 103 

Jesus Christ. 
the name 177 

John the Baptist. 

his coming 144 

his preaching 145 

JowETT, Benjamin. 
on the state of the world . 243 



332 



INDEX 



Page 

Kingdom of Heaven. 
described 178, 187 

Leckt, W. E. H. 
on the king's touch .... 253 

Life. 

continuity of 11 

forms of 13, 26 

first living creature . . . . 20 

mystery of 32 

of a bird 32 

the only life 34, 63 

lower and higher . . . . 34, 72 

Livingstone, David. 
a witness to Christ . . 138, 323 

Love. 

in creation 16 

called for man 27 

interprets life 31 

is duty 67 

Man. 

the first 26 

a living soul 30, 69 

his creation 30 

made religion possible ... 33 
his double relation . . .34, 53 

lightly regarded 57 

dignity of 62 

to be like his maker . . . . 64 
his Edenic happiness . . 68, 70 
lame or halting creature . . 68 
connected with lower forms of 

life . 71 

transition from obedience, 76, 
79, 85 

his slow ascent 77 

his "fall up" 80 

in the garden of Eden ... 80 

out of the garden 88 

the problem of recovery . . 95 

Maurice, F. D. 
his consciousness of God . . 41 



Page 

Maurice, F. D. 
on the Hindoos 102 

Miracles. 

at Cana 154 

described 204 

on the lame man at the Tem- 
ple 231 

Missions. 
essential to Christianity . . 259 

their forces 262 

their results 272 

to Britain -274 

well established 288 

still needed 295 

MULFORD, E. 

on the belief in God . . . . 41 
MULLER, G. 

his orphanage 267 

Nansen, Fridtjof. 

reasoning fi'om driftwood . 94 
Nature. 

its pei'manent meaning ... 16 

its early records 23 

Nazareth. 

its synagogue visited . . . 158 
Nelson, Horatio. 

signal at Trafalgar .... 225 

NiCODEMUS. 

his interview with Christ . 155 
Obedience. 

the nature of 67 

the ground of 66 

transition from 76, 79 

Palestine. 

a fitting place for the life of 

Christ 142 

Parsees. 

their stories of creation ... 90 
Paton, J. G. 

his witness to Christianity, 

324 



INDEX 



333 



Page 

Patteson, J. C. 
his witness to Christianity . 323 

Paul, Saint. 
a witness to Christ .... 134 

his conversion 232 

his ministry 233 

his authority 237 

Peabody, a. p. 
on the person of Christ . . 172 
his testimony 308 

Penikese. 
Agassiz's prayer on .... 45 

Pentecost, Day of. 
its importance 227 

Peter, Saint. 
his miracle at the Temple, 
231 

Plato. 

describes creation 15 

on the soul 39 

Pliny. 
on the spread of Christianity, 
247 

Pkayeb. 
a part of Chiistianity . . . 212 
the Lord's Prayer 325 

Prophet. 
the one coming 318 

Ramabai, Pundita. 
on the women of India . . 110 

Religion. 
separate from preaching ... 3 

reality of 5 

variety in 5 

confesses a supreme will ... 7 

is personal 7 

source of 8 

universal 8 

without science 13 

became possible 33 

demanded by men 94 



Page 

Religions. 

of the world 103 

insist on morality 105 

reveal man 105 

superstition in 106 

insufficient 108 

a common principle in . . . 112 

Republic, The American. 

formation of 282 

its influence 286 

Robertson, F. W. 

it is right to do right .... 66 

Sabbath, The. 
a part of Christianity . . .213 

Samaria. 
Christ at the well of . . . 156 

Science. 

without religion 13 

confirmed by the Bible . 17, 20 

opposition to 251 

formed by Christianity . . 252 

Serpent, The. 
in the garden 83 

Soul, The. 

what it is 33 

is the man 36, 69 

origin of 36 

Plato on 39 

Spencer, Herbert. 
on the being of God .... 42 

Stephen, Saint. 
his martyrdom 233 

Storrs, R. S. 
his lectures 249 

Superstition. 

in religions 106 

Hitchcock on 107 

Temptation, The. 
in the garden of Eden ... 87 

not of God 91 

temptation of Christ . . . 152 



334 



INDEX 



Page 
Tradition. 

source of 19 

Truth. 

independent of form .... 4 
ViRCHOW, Professor. 

on life 11 

Walker, J. 

the gospel of encouragement, 59 

on the person of Christ . . 172 

his testimony 309 

WiNTHROP, J. 

on the design of the Puri- 
tans 284 



Page 
WooLSKT, Theodore. 

his testimony 307 

Worship. 
by the Zuni Indians . . .113 

i of the heavens 114 

Young Men's Christian Asso- 
ciations. 
their purpose and strength . 290 

in colleges 293 

international 293 

Zuni Indians. 
their worship 113 



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